The fog, which earlier in the afternoon had been but a blue haze, softening the hard outlines of the street, had now settled down in earnest, choking up the doorways, wiping out the tops of the buildings, their facades starred here and there with gas-jets, and making a smudged drawing of the columns of the Custom House opposite. “Superb, are they not?” said Peter, as he wheeled and stood looking at the row of monoliths supporting the roof of the huge granite pile, each column in relief against the dark shadows of the portico. “And they are never so beautiful to me, my boy, as when the ugly parts of the old building are lost in the fog. Follow the lines of these watchmen of the temple! These grave, dignified, majestic columns standing out in the gloom keeping guard! But it is only a question of time--down they'll come! See if they don't!” “They will never dare move them,” I protested. “It would be too great a sacrilege.” The best way to get Peter properly started is never to agree with him. “Not move them! They will break them up for dock-filling before ten years are out. They're in the way, my boy; they shut out the light; can't hang signs on them; can't plaster them over with theatre bills; no earthly use. 'Wall Street isn't Rome or any other excavated ruin; it's the centre of the universe'--that's the way the fellows behind these glass windows talk.” Here Peter pointed to the offices of some prominent bankers, where other belated clerks were still at work under shaded gas-jets. “These fellows don't want anything classic; they want something that'll earn four per cent.” We were now opposite the Sub-Treasury, its roof lost in the settling fogs, the bronze figure of the Father of His Country dominating the flight of marble steps and the adjacent streets. Again Peter wheeled; this time he lifted his hat to the statue. “Good evening, your Excellency,” he said in a voice mellowed to the same respectful tone with which he would have addressed the original in the flesh. Suddenly he loosened his arm from mine and squared himself so he could look into my face. “I notice that you seldom salute him, Major, and it grieves me,” he said with a grim smile. I broke into a laugh. “Do you think he would feel hurt if I didn't.”