A foreign city! He could hardly understand the language spoken by the people in the streets. Within a quarter of a mile he came on a great garden with trees and grass, and down a street he could see more trees. A keen air was blowing. It was invigorating and whipped up his blood. In Thrigsby, when the air was keen it was unpleasant and devastating. The boarding-houses and private hotels in the region of the station seemed to him very lordly houses. They had wide, handsome doors that were in themselves a welcome--a welcoming and no indifferent city. It seemed to him that the people in the streets were aware of each other. At least he was aware of them, and pleased with every kind of person. So many of them were amused, so many found it good to be walking the streets, and they had some mind and energy to spare from the business of the moment. Even the people in the sordid streets through which he passed had the air of bearing their squalor good-humoredly. No one was moody or grimly silent. And there was color. He knew the color of many country-sides, but always on entering the cities he had felt as though a dirty sponge had been passed over his vision. Certain streets seemed to be filled with a dancing, colored light. He was lured on from one to another, with no thought of time or direction. Some of the great thoroughfares were so familiar from pictures that he felt at home in them, and was queerly put out when they led on to places and views of which he had no recollection. Finding himself approaching a church as well known to him as the Collegiate Church in Thrigsby, he said to himself with a sudden thrill of almost awe: "This is the Strand!" And then down a street he caught sight of water. The river! He almost ran down toward it.