Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I A BOY ARRIVES AND DISCOVERS THE WORLD IN those days church spires were still the most conspicuous features in the sky-line of New York. Old Trinity still looked down upon the roofs of Wall Street, instead of craning its neck, looking up at them, as to-day. Grace Church, huddled and hidden among dry-goods stores and glove-factories at Broadway and Eleventh Street, in those days pleasantly dominated a dignified neighborhood of stately residences, where the "best families" lived on the borders of Washington Square. Canal Street was the northern boundary of the city's business section. Ladies (in crinolines) went to Maiden Lane for their furs; to Park Row and Barclay Street for their dresses. The newest hotel, the St. Nicholas, gorgeous beyond description, according to the guide-books of the time, stood at the corner of Spring Street and Broadway. "I remember," said the Garrulous Old Party we used to know—"I remember when Gramercy Park was 'way up-town." That was in the 'fifties. New York was in its 'teens in those days. Therewere trees on Broadway, but no cable-cars. There were not even horse-cars. Those ambling conveyances, known grandly as the Harlem Railroad, were confined to the side avenues—Third, Sixth, and Eighth. Up Broadway and up Fifth Avenue lumbered innumerable omnibuses. It was a small New York compared with the metropolis of to-day. But there were dust and bustle even then. Old-timers complained that life was becoming all hurry and confusion, and indignant citizens wrote to newspapers, asking whether a fare on the horse-car did not entitle one to a seat. The New York Fire Department about this time resolved, "if possible, to procure a steam fire-engine" and to build an engine-house "somewhere between Bleecker Street and Fourteenth." New...