“Ah! this is solid comfort,” he muses, stretching his legs out on the front seat as if eager to fill the whole vehicle; “it is my dream realized: a private carriage, a fine weed--perfect happiness. When my million comes home, I’ve got it all laid out. It won’t take me long to spend it. I can shut my eyes and imagine I’m a McCormick or a Cereal going home to my palatial abode. It’s just elegant, you know.” Thus he chuckles and interviews himself after a habit peculiarly his own, until suddenly the vehicle draws up to the curb. “Twenty-first Street, sir,” says John, who is especially good-natured after receiving the fat fee from the young roysterer. Wycherley alights with great dignity. “Good-night, my man,” he says, and the driver, impressed with his air, answers respectfully. The ex-actor saunters along the avenue until the hack has vanished. Then he turns on his heel and retraces his steps to the corner. Along Twenty-first Street he walks. At this hour of the night, the dividing line between two days, there are few people abroad, and Wycherley meets no one on his tramp. As he advances the neighborhood grows more squalid, until he is in one of the poorest sections of the city, not far from the railroad. At length he pauses in front of a dilapidated frame, evidently a tenement--pauses with a dramatic gesture, and mutters: “Behold! the Hotel des Vagabonde, where thieves never break through and steal; where no one rolls and groans from an overloaded stomach; the home of the highway prince, the boot-black cavalier, and the jolly old bachelor. Waive all ceremony and enter, my dear boy. I’ll not arouse the janitor, poor fellow. And as I’m a wise man I’ll extinguish this cigar for a double reason--it’ll give me a morning smoke, and prevent a sensation in the princely hotel, for a Havana is unknown in this region of powerful clay pipes, and the odor might offend the fastidous nose of some lodger, when there would be the deuce to pay.” No sooner said than done. At the door no keeper challenges his entrance; day and night it is free to all. Wycherley climbs various flights of rickety stairs. It is very dark, but he seems to know from intuition just where every broken board lies, and the higher he gets, the lighter his spirits grow. He hums an operatic air and changes it to “After the Ball.” Really this man makes light of care--troubles sit upon him like bubbles. Now he stops in front of a door, fumbles in his pocket, finds a key, and enters. “Where the deuce is that electric button? very queer I fail to find it. Well, making a virtue of necessity I’ll have to fall back on Old Reliable.” A match crackles, the flame shoots up. Then he applied it to the wick of a candle stuck in the neck of an old beer bottle.