Through Washington Place across Broadway; through Astor Place and down the Bowery. The bulk of Cooper Union loomed like a whale against the sky. The sight of it, brought the slightly fœtid smell of the reading-room into Wilfred’s nostrils. It was a place where you could go. The bums never looked at you. He breasted the Bowery like a swimmer. No early-to-bed habits here. He edged along close to the store-fronts, looking at everybody; entering into them; thieves, prostitutes, drunken men, sporting characters, and the great unclassified. So many and such queer souls each peeping suspiciously out of a pair of eyes. With the shuffling of the people, the four track line of electric cars in the middle of the street, and the steam cars of the Elevated railway immediately over the sidewalk, the uproar was at once distracting and stimulating. There were certain store windows that Wilfred always looked into; the florist’s full of green wire frames to serve as a foundation for funeral pieces; a musical instrument dealer’s exhibiting a gigantic brass horn and a doll’s horn beside it to show the range of the stock; an animal and bird store with cages of monkeys. Something furtive and ugly in the eyes of the people watching the monkeys made Wilfred exquisitely uneasy. As you went on the stores became less reputable in character. Besides the crowding saloons, there were the auction sales, celebrated in the popular song; the dime museums and side shows with faded banners; an anatomical museum, free “for men only.” All the shows had a free lobby to tempt you in. The most innocent were those with ranks of Edison’s phonographs inside; but Wilfred recoiled from the little bone pieces you had to stick in your ears. Glancing into a store window where mirrors were displayed, he saw repeated from every angle, the figure of a boy that his eyes embraced all over in a flash. A boy approaching sixteen, tall for his age; dressed in a shapeless snuff-colored suit, with trousers that flapped almost as if there were no legs within them. He walked with a long step having a funny little dip in the middle. He had wavy, light brown hair, a lock of which escaped untidily under the visor of his cap to sweep his forehead. His eyes, somewhat deep-set, were grey-blue in color, and had a look at once haunted, secretive and top-lofty—Wilfred’s word. A wide mouth with uneven lips like a crimson gash across his white face. There was a something awkward about him; something self-centered and peculiar that set him apart from other boys. A boy to be jeered at. In that flash Wilfred saw it clearly. Why . . . that’s me, he thought, with self-consciousness winging back, making the picture hateful. Oh Lord! what a dub! The picture remained fixed in his mind amongst the multitude of pictures capable of turning up at any odd moment.