It was the evening after David's adventure with Kate Morgan. From the snowy air of broad Avenue A a good-natured crowd was turning into a gilded entrance, over which incandescent lights pricked the words "Liberty Assembly Hall." The crowd was chiefly German, but in it were many of the newer peoples of the neighbourhood. There were broad husbands and broad wives; children led by hand, babies carried in arms; young people in couples and in hilarious groups; solitary and furtive men and women. Most were in their finest, and some of the finery would not have made the opera ashamed; but many were dressed in shabbiness--though they, too, wore their best. David, who had wandered into Avenue A, as he often did in his aimless night walks, paused momentarily and listlessly watched the in-going stream of people. A New Year's ball, he decided; but the word "Mayor" recurred so often in the bits of conversation he overheard that his inert curiosity prompted him to draw near a friendly-looking man who stood without the entrance. "What's going on in there?" he asked. "Installing the Mayor of Avenue A," the man returned. David had vaguely heard of the "Mayors" who exercise an unofficial authority in several districts of New York. "How's the Mayor chosen?" he asked. "By election?" "No. Carl Hoffman's the most popular man on the Avenue; he's got coin and influence; we all want him. That's how it is." "What does he do?" "If you need a dollar, and ain't got it, you go to Carl. If a poor woman ain't got any coal, she lets Carl know and she's got it. If you're dispossessed or in trouble with the police, Carl fixes you up. If you can't get work, you go see Carl. He's the poor man's friend--everybody's friend." For several moments David was silent. Then he asked abruptly, "Is this a private ceremony?" "Oh, no; go on in, if you want to." David joined the entering crowd, mounted a broad flight of stairs, passed through a short hallway, and came into a large hall. Every chair was taken and people stood in the aisles and along the sides. Three electric-light chandeliers, wound in bunting and loaded with glass pendants, were each a glittering sun. The maroon walls were relieved by raised gold-and-white scroll work, and by alternate mirrors and oil-paintings set into the plastering. These paintings were Tyrolean scenes, cascades and moon-lit seas--such as the art-fostering department store supplies at a dollar or two, golden frame included. At the further end of the hall was a stage, draped with American flags. At the stage's back a band, in purple and gold braid, was blowing out its brass instruments; and at the stage's front, beneath "_OUR MAYOR_" in evergreen letters that hung from the proscenium arch, sat four rotund men in a row.