“I don’t know, perhaps the corduroy dress I had on today,” replied Janet. “It’s so comfortable and I think it’s becoming.”
“I guess I’ll vote that way, too,” said Helen, and a minute later both girls were asleep.
They were up early the next morning, breakfasting as the train sped out of the Jersey hills and straightened out for its dash across the tidewater flats to Jersey City. They shot past commuter trains at almost regular intervals for their limited had the right of way.
As they neared the terminal, the porter took their bags and Helen handed him a tip. Her father had deliberately routed them over a line which ended in Jersey City so that they might have their first real glimpse of the towering New York skyline from a ferryboat.
The passengers poured off the train and onto the nearby ferry. Bells clanged, smoke rolled from the twin stacks, and the bulky boat nosed out into the river.
Helen crowded close to Janet as the full majesty of the skyline was unfolded. To their right was the lower city with its cluster of skyscrapers while to their left was mid-town with the Empire State towering almost into the clouds. A little beyond that the sharp spire of the Chrysler building rose skyward.
On the New York side of the Hudson liners were sandwiched into the docks and Janet grabbed Helen’s arm and pointed to one. It was the Europa, famed speed liner. A little further along was the Rex, pride of the Italian merchant marine.
Then the ferry was nosing into its pier. Gates clanged, their baggage was loaded aboard a taxi, and almost before they knew it they were whirling away toward the heart of the city. Helen had given their hotel address.
Up onto an elevated roadway sped their cab where it rocketed along at forty-five miles an hour. Then they shot onto an incline and eased down into a street below. Traffic lights slowed them up now, but in less than ten minutes after leaving the ferry they were in Times Square, the very heart of the throbbing city, where Broadway and Seventh Avenue cross to form a great triangular opening.
At the hotel desk Janet registered for both of them.