XXII
This picture is not concerned with his destination. Or even whether he ever got there.
But it is very directly concerned with George Z. Green, and the direction he took when he parted from his old school friend.
As he walked up town he said to himself, "Bunk!" several times. After a few moments he fished out his watch.
"I know I'm an ass," he said to himself, "but I'll take a chance. I'll give myself exactly ten minutes to continue making an ass of myself. And if I see the faintest symptom of Romance—if I[202] notice anything at all peculiar and unusual in any person or any thing during the next ten minutes, I won't let it get away—believe me!"
He walked up Broadway instead of Fifth Avenue. After a block or two he turned west at hazard, crossed Sixth Avenue and continued.
He was walking in one of the upper Twenties—he had not particularly noticed which. Commercial houses nearly filled the street, although a few old-time residences of brownstone still remained. Once well-to-do and comfortable homes, they had degenerated into chop sueys, boarding houses, the abodes of music publishers, artificial flower makers, and mediums.
It was now a shabby, unkempt street, and Green already was considering it a hopeless hunting ground, and had even turned to retrace his steps toward Sixth Avenue, when the door of a neighbouring house opened and down the shabby, brownstone stoop came hurrying an exceedingly pretty girl.