Chandler’s honorarium was $18 per week.  He was employed in the office of an architect.  He was twenty-two years old; he considered architecture to be truly an art; and he honestly believed—­though he would not have dared to admit it in New York—­that the Flatiron Building was inferior to design to the great cathedral in Milan.

Out of each week’s earnings Chandler set aside $1.  At the end of each ten weeks with the extra capital thus accumulated, he purchased one gentleman’s evening from the bargain counter of stingy old Father Time.  He arrayed himself in the regalia of millionaires and presidents; he took himself to the quarter where life is brightest and showiest, and there dined with taste and luxury.  With ten dollars a man may, for a few hours, play the wealthy idler to perfection.  The sum is ample for a well-considered meal, a bottle bearing a respectable label, commensurate tips, a smoke, cab fare and the ordinary etceteras.

This one delectable evening culled from each dull seventy was to Chandler a source of renascent bliss.  To the society bud comes but one debut; it stands alone sweet in her memory when her hair has whitened; but to Chandler each ten weeks brought a joy as keen, as thrilling, as new as the first had been.  To sit among bon vivants under palms in the swirl of concealed music, to look upon the habitues of such a paradise and to be looked upon by them—­what is a girl’s first dance and short-sleeved tulle compared with this?

Up Broadway Chandler moved with the vespertine dress parade.  For this evening he was an exhibit as well as a gazer.  For the next sixty-nine evenings he would be dining in cheviot and worsted at dubious table d’hotes, at whirlwind lunch counters, on sandwiches and beer in his hall-bedroom.  He was willing to do that, for he was a true son of the great city of razzle-dazzle, and to him one evening in the limelight made up for many dark ones.

Chandler protracted his walk until the Forties began to intersect the great and glittering primrose way, for the evening was yet young, and when one is of the beau monde only one day in seventy, one loves to protract the pleasure.  Eyes bright, sinister, curious, admiring, provocative, alluring were bent upon him, for his garb and air proclaimed him a devotee to the hour of solace and pleasure.

At a certain corner he came to a standstill, proposing to himself the question of turning back toward the showy and fashionable restaurant in which he usually dined on the evenings of his especial luxury.  Just then a girl scuddled lightly around the corner, slipped on a patch of icy snow and fell plump upon the sidewalk.

Chandler assisted her to her feet with instant and solicitous courtesy.  The girl hobbled to the wall of the building, leaned against it, and thanked him demurely.

“I think my ankle is strained,” she said.  “It twisted when I fell.”

“Does it pain you much?” inquired Chandler.