Poor stricken Ben looked in silence a long time.  We all felt his suffering and kept silent, too.  Even Jeff Tuttle kept still—­who all the way down had been singing about old Bill Bailey who played the Ukelele in Honolulu Town.  It was a solemn moment.  After a few more minutes of silent grief Ben drew himself together and walked off without saying a word.  I thought walking would be a good idea for all of us, especially Lon and Jeff, so Jake paid the taxi drivers and we followed on foot after the chief mourner.  The fragile New Yorker had been exhumed and placed in an upright position and he walked, too, when he understood what was wanted of him; he didn’t say a word, just did what was told him like one of these boys that the professor hypnotizes on the stage.  I herded the bunch along about half a block back of Ben, feeling it was delicate to let him wallow alone in his emotions.

We got over to Broadway, turned up that, and worked on through that dinky little grass plot they call a square, kind of aimless like and wondering where Ben in his grief would lead us.  The day was well begun by this time and the passing cars was full of very quiet people on their way to early work.  Jake Berger said these New Yorkers would pay for it sooner or later, burning the candle at both ends this way—­dancing all night and then starting off to work.

Then up a little way we catch sight of a regular old-fashioned horse-car going crosstown.  Ben has stopped this and is talking excitedly to the driver so we hurry up and find he’s trying to buy the car from the driver.  Yes, sir; he says its the last remnant of New York when it was little and old and he wants to take it back to Nome as a souvenir.  Anybody might of thought he’d been drinking.  He’s got his roll out and wants to pay for the car right there.  The driver is a cold-looking old boy with gray chin whiskers showing between his cap and his comforter and he’s indignantly telling Ben it can’t be done.  By the time we get there the conductor has come around and wants to know what they’re losing all this time for.  He also says they can’t sell Ben the car and says further that we’d all better go home and sleep it off, so Ben hands ’em each a ten spot, the driver lets off his brake, and the old ark rattles on while Ben’s eyes is suffused with a suspicious moisture, as they say.

Ben now says we must stand right on this corner to watch these cars go by—­about once every hour.  We argued with him whilst we shivered in the bracing winelike air, but Ben was stubborn.  We might of been there yet if something hadn’t diverted him from this evil design.  It was a string of about fifty Italians that just then come out of a subway entrance.  They very plainly belonged to the lower or labouring classes and I judged they was meant for work on the up-and-down street we stood on, that being already torn up recklessly till it looked like most other streets in the same town.  They stood around talking in a delirious or Italian