"It's a comfortable theory," I answered.
"But an untenable one. And Fortune is equally elusive to those who seek her over-persistently. The truth, as usual, lies between the extremes."
"Well?"
"The secret is simple enough. He who is ready to receive, receives. Love, fame, the shower of gold—they are in the air, and only waiting to be precipitated. I stand ready to be amused, and that same afternoon the Evening Post aims a blow at the Tammany 'Tiger' over the shoulder of Mr. Edward M. Shepard; I am in the mood adventurous, and instantly the shadow of a prodigy falls across my threshold; yea, though I live on upper West End Avenue. Do you remember this?" and he held out a small Yale latch-key.
"It is the one you picked up at Twenty-seventh Street and Fifth Avenue last night."
"Precisely. Now a key, you observe, is intended to open something—in this case a door. What door? As though that mattered! Put on your rain-coat, my dear Thorp, and let us begin a little journey into the unknown. Fate will lead us surely, O unbelieving one, if you will but place your hand unresistingly in hers."
We left the house, and Indiman tossed a penny into the air. "Broadway, heads; Fourth Avenue, tails." Tails it was.
Arrived at Fourth Avenue, we stood waiting for a car. The first that came along was on its way up-town and we boarded it.
"Was it you who asked for a cross-town transfer at Twenty-ninth?" inquired the conductor of Indiman a few minutes later, and Indiman nodded assent and took the transfer slips.
At Eighth Avenue the cross-town car was blocked by a stalled coal-cart. We alighted and passively awaited further directions from our esoteric guide. Quite an amusing game for a dull, rainy afternoon, and I felt grateful to Indiman for its invention.