No, not altogether. There was something piquant--Villonesque, or jovial--Rabelaisian, about the pickpockets of that tribe. These solemn mummers strike a ghoulish note. But at the same time, out here in the sane and cheerful sunlight, they don't look real. Create an odd impression. Strikes you as about as queer, this bunch, as if a lot of actors from a melodrama should turn up in the street with their makeup on and gravely pretend to belong to real life. "Perhaps," I thought, "there is a funeral, or something, going on inside, and I should not be gaping in at this window." Out of doorway pops little, rotund man, oily countenance. "Are you looking for anybody?" he asks. "Here," I said inwardly, "is where I get moved on." No, I told him, I was just observing his window. "Ah!" he cried, immensely flattered. He waved his hand back toward a couple of little, marble crosses with hearts carved in relief on the base. "You don't often see that, do you? Do you, now? They're sixty years old. Made out of a single piece!" But the saddest thing about undertakers' shops is to go by where was one long familiar to you and find it gone. There was a splendid little place which it was a great consolation to me to admire. That building is now given over to an enterprise called "The Goody Shop." Its lofty dignity and deep eloquence are gone! It looks like a department store. It is labelled, with the blare of a brass band, "The Home of Pussy Willow Chocolates." CHAPTER IV THE HAIR CUT THAT WENT TO MY HEAD I did not expect anything in particular when I went in. Though, indeed, it is a very famous place. That is, the hotel is--the Brevoort. The name itself, Brevoort, is very rich in romantic Knickerbocker associations. Probably you know all about that. Or, possibly, you don't know--or have forgotten. Well, you do know how Broadway curves around there at Tenth Street. That ought to recall Hendrick Brevoort to you. His farm was all about this neighborhood. Caused this kink, he did, so it is said. This valorous descendant of the old burgher defied the commissioners to destroy his homestead, which lay in the proposed path of Broadway. Or to cut down a favorite tree which blocked the intended course of Eleventh Street. Stood at his threshold with a blunderbuss in his trembling old hands (so the story has it), when the workmen arrived to carry out their instructions to demolish the house--and carried his point so effectively that Broadway was deflected from its course, while Eleventh Street between Broadway and Fourth Avenue was never completed. Grace Church, which now stands at about where valiant Henry stood that day, was built by a descendant of his, the architect also of St. Patrick's Cathedral. I like to think of these matters sometimes when I enter the cool cream beauty of this ancient frame hostelry.