It took no very long interval to prove that there was some foundation for Mr. Tolman's last assertion, for within a short time the travelers were standing on Fifth Avenue amid the rush of traffic, and feeling of as little importance as dwarfs in a giant's country. The roar of the mighty city, its bustle and confusion, were both exhilarating and terrifying. They had left their luggage at the hotel and now, while Steve's father went to meet a business appointment, the boy was to take a ride up the Avenue on one of the busses, a diversion of which he never tired. To sit on top and look down on the throng in the streets was always novel and entertaining to one who passed his days in a quiet New England town. Therefore he stopped one of the moving vehicles and in great good humor bade his father good-by; and feeling very self-sufficient to be touring New York by himself, clambered eagerly up to a seat. There were few passengers on the top of the coach for the chill of early morning still lingered in the air; but before they reached Riverside Drive a man with a bright, ruddy countenance and iron-grey hair hailed the bus and climbed up beside the boy. As he took his place he glanced at him kindly and instantly Steve felt a sense of friendliness toward the stranger; and after they had ridden a short distance in silence the man spoke. "What a beautiful river the Hudson is!" he remarked. "Although I am an old New Yorker I never cease to delight in its charm and its fascinating history. It was on this body of water, you know, that the first steamboat was tried out." "I didn't know it," Stephen confessed, with an honest blush. "You will be learning about it some day, I fancy," said the other, with a smile. "An interesting story it is, too. All the beginnings of our great industries and inventions read like romances." "My father has just been telling me about the beginnings of some of our railroads," observed Steve shyly, "and certainly his stories were as good as fairy tales." "Is your father especially interested in railroads?" inquired the New Yorker. "Yes, sir. He is in the railroad business." "Ah, then that accounts for his filling your ears with locomotives instead of steamboats," declared the man, with a twinkle in his eyes. "Now if I were to spin a yarn for you, it would be of steamboats because that happens to be the thing I am interested in; I believe their history to be one of the most alluring tales to which a boy could listen. Sometime you get a person who knows the drama from start to finish to relate to you the whole marvelous adventure of early steamboating, and you see if it does not beat the railroad story all out." He laughed a merry laugh in which Stephen joined. "I wish you would tell it to me yourself," suggested the lad. The man turned with an expression of pleasure on his red-cheeked face.