One began to learn quickly, he found.  It was like being swept into a maelstrom:  first the hurrying throngs on the ferry-boat, and then the cabmen and the newsboys shouting, and the cars with clanging gongs; then the swift motor, gliding between trucks and carriages and around corners where big policemen shepherded the scurrying populace; and then Fifth Avenue, with its rows of shops and towering hotels; and at last a sudden swing round a corner—­and their home.

“I have picked a quiet family place for you,” Oliver had said, and that had greatly pleased his brother.  But he had stared in dismay when he entered this latest “apartment hotel”—­which catered for two or three hundred of the most exclusive of the city’s aristocracy—­and noted its great arcade, with massive doors of bronze, and its entrance-hall, trimmed with Caen stone and Italian marble, and roofed with a vaulted ceiling painted by modern masters.  Men in livery bore their wraps and bowed the way before them; a great bronze elevator shot them to the proper floor; and they went to their rooms down a corridor walled with blood-red marble and paved with carpet soft as a cushion.  Here were six rooms of palatial size, with carpets, drapery, and furniture of a splendour quite appalling to Montague.

As soon as the man who bore their wraps had left the room, he turned upon his brother.

“Oliver,” he said, “how much are we paying for all this?”

Oliver smiled.  “You are not paying anything, old man,” he replied.  “You’re to be my guests for a month or two, until you get your bearings.”

“That’s very good of you,” said the other; “—­we’ll talk about it later.  But meantime, tell me what the apartment costs.”

And then Montague encountered his first full charge of New York dynamite.  “Six hundred dollars a week,” said Oliver.

He started as if his brother had struck him.  “Six hundred dollars a week!” he gasped.

“Yes,” said the other, quietly.

It was fully a minute before he could find his breath.  “Brother,” he exclaimed, “you’re mad!”

“It is a very good bargain,” smiled the other; “I have some influence with them.”

Again there was a pause, while Montague groped for words.  “Oliver,” he exclaimed, “I can’t believe you!  How could you think that we could pay such a price?”

“I didn’t think it,” said Oliver; “I told you I expected to pay it myself.”

“But how could we let you pay it for us?” cried the other.  “Can you fancy that I will ever earn enough to pay such a price?”

“Of course you will,” said Oliver.  “Don’t be foolish, Allan—­you’ll find it’s easy enough to make money in New York.  Leave it to me, and wait awhile.”

But the other was not to be put off.  He sat down on the embroidered silk bedspread, and demanded abruptly, “What do you expect my income to be a year?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” laughed Oliver; “nobody takes the time to add up his income.  You’ll make what you need, and something over for good measure.  This one thing you’ll know for certain—­the more you spend, the more you’ll be able to make.”