Page:Letters from America, Brooke, 1916.djvu/64

14 Customs mysteries were to be celebrated. The place was dominated by a large, dirty, vociferous man, coatless, in a black shirt and black apron. His mouth and jaw were huge; he looked like a caricaturist's Roosevelt. 'Express Company' was written on his forehead; labels of a thousand colours, printed slips, pencils and pieces of string, hung from his pockets and his hands, were held behind his ears and in his mouth. I laid my situation and my incompetence before him, and learnt right where to go and right when to go there. Then he flung a vast, dingy arm round my shoulders, and bellowed, "We'll have your baggage right along to your hotel in two hours." It was a lie, but kindly. That grimy and generous embrace left me startled, but an initiate into Democracy.

The other evening I went a lonely ramble, to try to detect the essence of New York. A wary eavesdropper can always surprise the secret of a city, through chance scraps of conversation, or by spying from a window, or by coming suddenly round corners. I started on a 'car.' American tram-cars are open all along the side and can be entered at any point in it. The side is divided by vertical bars. It looks like a cage with the horizontal