Beginning with half-past six, he hovered like a shadow about the Thirty-ninth Street entrance, pretending always to be a hurrying pedestrian and yet fearful lest he should miss his object.  He was slightly nervous, too, now that the eventful hour had arrived; but being weak and hungry, his ability to suffer was modified.  At last he saw that the actors were beginning to arrive, and his nervous tension increased, until it seemed as if he could not stand much more.

Once he thought he saw Carrie coming and moved forward, only to see that he was mistaken.

“She can’t be long, now,” he said to himself, half fearing to encounter her and equally depressed at the thought that she might have gone in by another way.  His stomach was so empty that it ached.

Individual after individual passed him, nearly all well dressed, almost all indifferent.  He saw coaches rolling by, gentlemen passing with ladies—­the evening’s merriment was beginning in this region of theatres and hotels.

Suddenly a coach rolled up and the driver jumped down to open the door.  Before Hurstwood could act, two ladies flounced across the broad walk and disappeared in the stage door.  He thought he saw Carrie, but it was so unexpected, so elegant and far away, he could hardly tell.  He waited a while longer, growing feverish with want, and then seeing that the stage door no longer opened, and that a merry audience was arriving, he concluded it must have been Carrie and turned away.

“Lord,” he said, hastening out of the street into which the more fortunate were pouring, “I’ve got to get something.”

At that hour, when Broadway is wont to assume its most interesting aspect, a peculiar individual invariably took his stand at the corner of Twenty-sixth Street and Broadway—­a spot which is also intersected by Fifth Avenue.  This was the hour when the theatres were just beginning to receive their patrons.  Fire signs announcing the night’s amusements blazed on every hand.  Cabs and carriages, their lamps gleaming like yellow eyes, pattered by.  Couples and parties of three and four freely mingled in the common crowd, which poured by in a thick stream, laughing and jesting.  On Fifth Avenue were loungers—­a few wealthy strollers, a gentleman in evening dress with his lady on his arm, some club-men passing from one smoking-room to another.  Across the way the great hotels showed a hundred gleaming windows, their cafes and billiard-rooms filled with a comfortable, well-dressed, and pleasure-loving throng.  All about was the night, pulsating with the thoughts of pleasure and exhilaration—­the curious enthusiasm of a great city bent upon finding joy in a thousand different ways.