Your bags have long since been carried away by the Pullman porter, and you have sat for many minutes in the hot car, wearing the overcoat and hat into which he insisted upon putting you when you were yet many miles outside New York. Before the train stops you are in the narrow passage-way at the end of the car, lined-up with others eager to escape. The Redcaps run beside the vestibule. That is one good thing: there are always plenty of porters in New York. The Pullman porter hands your bags to a station porter, and you hand the Pullman porter something which elicits a swift: "Thank you, boss." Then, through the crowd, you make your way, behind your Redcap, towards the taxi-stand. In the great concourse, people are rushing hither and thither. Every one is in a hurry. Every one is dodging every one else. Every one is trying to keep his knees from being knocked by swift-passing suitcases. You feel dazed, rushed, jostled. It is always the same, the arrival in New York. The stranger setting foot there for the first time may, perhaps, sense more keenly than the returning resident, the magnificent fury of the city. But, upon reaching the metropolis after a period of exile, the most confirmed New Yorker must, unless his perceptions are quite ossified, feel his imagination quicken as he is again confronted by the whirling, grinding, smashing, shrieking, seething, writhing, glittering, hellish splendor of the City of New York. Never before, it seemed to me, had I felt the impact of the city as when I moved through the crowded concourse of the Pennsylvania Terminal with my companion--the comrade of so many trains and tickets, so many miles and meals. We were at our journey's end. We were in New York again at last and would be in our respective homes as soon as taxicabs could take us to them. But, eager as I was to reach my home, it was with a kind of pang that I realized that now, for the first time in months, we would not drive away together in the same taxicab, but would part here, at the taxi-stand, and go our separate ways; that we would not dine together that night, nor sup together, nor visit in each other's rooms to talk over the day's doings, before turning in, nor breakfast together in the morning, nor match coins to determine who should pay for things. When the first taxi came up there were politenesses between us as to which should take it--that in itself bespoke the change already coming over us. I persuaded him to get in. We shook hands hurriedly through the window. Then, with a jerk, the taxi started.