The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-05-20

The New Yorker moves in very much smaller circle than he realizes or
 than anybody else could make him be- lieve. He likes to think of himself as the citizen of a metropolis, wandering over a larger civic area than the less fortunate dwellers of any other city. Does he
 ! It was the fate of a young man to be 1 sitting in a restaurant the other even ing when two other persons entered and
 sat down at an adjoining table.
 Tell me who that fellow is,'' one of the newcomers said to the other. T never came into this place ill my life that I didn't see the man in here" This restaurant, which is frequented
 by the right sort, did receive great
 deal of patronage from the young man
 who had aroused the interest of the late
 arrivals. It was near his rooms and 1t
 was good and cheap. But it had never
 before occurred to him that he was re- jcognized as fixture of the place, like Ithe Hungarian band and the red cur I tains. ..1.. e Ej I He did not want to pose in that light anywhere He was not of sufficient i'm Eportance in business or any other way I to attract such attention to himself. The thought burned in his mind and out lof that fact grew a determination. He decided that he would not only keep out 1. of this restaurant for a while, but drop out of view of all the persons who in other cafes might be able to say that
 they had seen him every time they came in. % I He was a bachelor, condemned to res
 taurant life; so it was impossible for
 him to escape that way of eating alto sl gether. He found, however, a way of l getting dut of the gaze of the persons ! he did not want to see or be seen by. I That list included all those who had
 seen him often enough to look upon
 him as al restaurant and cafe fixture.
 He judged of his isolation by the fact
 that he met nobody he knew His ac- lquaintanoe was large and when he went
 into four, say, of the best known city
 restaurants, he was certain to meet
 friends. Yet in one week he dined in public without meeting soul he had ever seen before.
 The restaurants in which he now
 dined were attached as a rule, to apart ment hotels. They were often situated Sl in side streets and sometimes far up- x town Outsiders were rare guests and
 he may have attracted the attention ot
 the regular dWellers i'll these hotels.
 But he had never seen any of them be
 fore and that made no difference to
 him. Then he did not go to the same
 house during the first week more than
 once.
 He found the food in these places less
 to his taste than it had been in the res , taurants to which he was accustomed but it was good enough for an exile, as ,, he liked to fancy himself during these N days of his. retirement into the only kind of solitude possible to a man who . has to stick to business and go to his office every d;ly.
 He still accepted invitations to the houses of his friends. What he was : [trying to do was to avoid the kind ot
 public attention that he had been at
 tracting and to keep out of particular : places with which he was Identified { The scheme worked splendidly. He wa: < living as mudh out of his conventiona
 rut as if he hsld gone to Europa. < The idea of being in New York anC \ tyet so far out of his New York that hi ' might have been in another countr, ! fascinated hina. If he could lose him self so completely at night and keel ? away from th,e only places that hat ' seemed to him to exist here, why coult
 he not do the same thing at other time 2 of the day?
 Il He tried the, experiment in gettin, q down to business in the mornings ; Hitherto he hatl sought his office in tn ! business section of the city by the sixtl \ avenue elevatad. He never made tn < trip in the morning or afternoon witl- Y out meeting several acquaintances. I Y he failed to talk with them then he wa
 certain to be Joined by friends as h ! walked from the Rector street statiol z to his office in HIxchanga Place.
 $ The idea occurred to him that h U might try going tio his office in the sam s secrecy that he had begun to take hi r dinner , The experiment. was complete sut ' cess. It was neisessary for him to ge ;. out$of the house. a little bit earlier, bu
 he found comprehension for that in tn r variety of new ways Ii which he coul 3, travel down town. A walk of a. fe, U minutes longer carried him one da Es down on the Ninth avenue elevated F The next day he started from the othe 's side of town on the Second avenue lin, 'e Once, with a lot of time on his hand y he travelled by the somewhat circuitou Il way of the Belt Line and found in tt q varied views along the river compens'
 tion for the somewhat slow rate of pr - gress and the mixed society of the V
 hicle. Then there were rides throus t. Greenwich village, which was unfami le far even to this New Yorker born an <. \. bred, and other methods of reaching h V office of which he, had never dreame l. before. If Losing ones self in one's own hon " proved to be a very agreeable sensatio s' There was not the least trace of mo
 lbidity or selfishness in this new If
 He saw his friends at dinner when the ;, invited him, and during business mi ~ gled with them all the time. But tl , delight of seeing them was twice { 7 great, since it came as less of matt, ~ .s of course than it had been when he m