Coast looked at him through the smoke of his cigar and spoke at last.
"I didn't think you'd be a quitter, Pete. The world owes us a livin'—you and me——Bah! It's easy if you'll use your headpiece. If the world won't give, I mean to take. The jobs are meant for little men."
"What are you going to do?"
"An enterprisin' man wouldn't ask such a question. Half the people in the world takes what the other half gives. You ought to know what half I belong to."
"I'm afraid I belong to the other half, Jim Coast," said Peter quietly.
"Sacré—!" sneered the other, rising suddenly. "Where you goin' to wait, Pete? At the Ritz or the Commodore? In a month you'll be waitin' on me. It'll be Mister Coast for you then, mon garçon, but you'll still be Pete." He shrugged and offered his hand. "Well, we won't quarrel but our ways split here."
"I'm sorry, Jim. Good-by."
He saw Coast slouch out into the street and disappear m the crowd moving toward Broadway. He waited for a while thinking deeply and then with a definite plan in his mind strolled forth. First he bought a second-hand suit case in Seventh Avenue, then found a store marked "Gentlemen's Outfitters" where he purchased ready-made clothing, a hat, shoes, underwear, linen and cravats, arraying himself with a sense of some satisfaction and packing in his suitcase what he couldn't wear, went forth, found a taxi and drove in state to a good hotel.
New York assimilates its immigrants with surprising rapidity. Through this narrow funnel they pour into the "melting pot," their racial characteristics already neutralized, their souls already inoculated with the spirit of individualism. Prepared as he was to accept with a good grace conditions as he found them, Peter Nichols was astonished at the ease with which he fitted into the niche that he had chosen. His room was on the eighteenth floor, to which and from which he was shot in an enameled lift operated by a Uhlan in a monkey-cap. He found that it required a rather nice adjustment of his muscles to spring forth at precisely the proper moment. There was a young lady who presided over the destinies of the particular shelf that he occupied in this enormous cupboard, a very pretty young lady, something between a French Duchess and a lady's maid. Her smile had a homelike quality though and it was worth risking the perilous catapulting up and down for the mere pleasure of handing her his room key. Having no valuables of course but his money which he carried in his pockets there was no danger from unprincipled persons had she been disposed to connive at dishonesty.