The growth of Port Argent had the marks of that irregular and corrupt legislation of destiny. It had not grown like an architect-builded house, according to orderly plans. If some thoughtful observer had come to it once every decade of its seventy years, it might have seemed to his mind not so much a mechanic result of men's labours as something living and personal, a creature with blood flowing daily through arteries and veins (trolley cars being devices to assist the flow), with brains working in a thousand cells, and a heart beating foolish emotions. He would note at one decade how it had thrown bridges across the river, steeples and elevator-buildings into the air, with sudden throbs of energy; had gathered a bundle of railroads and a row of factories under one arm, and was imitating speech through a half-articulate daily press; at another decade, it would seem to have slept; at another, it had run asphalt pavements out into the country, after whose enticing the houses had not followed, and along its busiest streets were hollow, weed-grown lots. On the whole, Port Argent would seem masculine rather than feminine, reckless, knowing not form or order, given to growing pains, boyish notions, ungainly gestures, changes of energy and sloth, high hope and sudden moodiness. The thoughtful observer of decades, seeing these signs of eccentric character, would feel curious to understand it from within, to enter its streets, offices, and homes, to question and listen, to watch the civic heart beat and brain conceive. One April afternoon, some decades ago, such an observer happened by and found gangs of men tearing up Lower Bank Street. Lower Bank Street was higher than Bank Street proper, but it was down the river, and in Port Argent people seldom cared whether anything fitted anything else. Bank Street proper was the main business street beside the river. Fifty years before, in forecasting the future city, one would have pictured Lower Bank Street as an avenue where wealth and dignity would take its pleasure; so had Henry Champney pictured it at that time; but the improvident foreigner lived along it largely, and possessed Port Argent's one prospect, the brown-flowing river with its ships. Most of the buildings were small houses or tenements. There was one stately line of square old mansions, a block or two long and beginning with the Champney place.