At the hotel they got a large comfortable
room and a bath for four dollars a day. Spenser insisted it was
cheap; Susan showed her alarm--less than an hour in New York and
ten dollars gone, not to speak of she did not know how much
change. For Roderick had been scattering tips with what is for
some mysterious reason called "a princely hand," though princes
know too well the value of money and have too many extravagant
tastes ever to go far in sheer throwing away.
They had dinner in the restaurant of the hotel and set out to
explore the land they purposed to subdue and to possess. They
walked up Broadway to Fourteenth, missed their way in the dazzle
and glare of south Union Square, discovered the wandering
highway again after some searching. After the long, rather quiet
stretch between Union Square and Thirty-fourth Street they found
themselves at the very heart of the city's night life. They
gazed in wonder upon the elevated road with its trains
thundering by high above them. They crossed Greeley Square and
stood entranced before the spectacle--a street bright as day
with electric signs of every color, shape and size; sidewalks
jammed with people, most of them dressed with as much pretense
to fashion as the few best in Cincinnati; one theater after
another, and at Forty-second Street theaters in every direction.
Surely--surely--there would be small difficulty in placing his
play when there were so many theaters, all eager for plays.
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