Page:Lady Athlyne (IA ladyathlyne00stok).pdf/65

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
AN ADVENTURE
59

was the filling up of the immigration paper which is so exhaustive as to details as to become inquisitorial. The answering of each question seemed to him like telling a lie—as indeed it was. As, however, he had nothing to declare and was without obvious objection he had no trouble. The only effect from the Customs examination that he noticed on himself was that when he drove out of the gates he felt somewhat as he had done when he passed from the prison pen at Pretoria into the cheering ranks of the victorious British army. He was lucky enough to escape from the ranks of the journalists who make copy out of any stranger of distinction who lands. His name was not sufficiently striking to even attract attention. He took quiet rooms high up in the "Manhattan," and for two days kept his own company.

The third day he went out. He walked through street after street; took trolley-cars now and again; went "up town" and "down town" on the road. Crossed the ferries to New Jersey and Long Island. Lunched at Martin's and dined at Delmonico's; and returned to his hotel without having made so far as he knew a step towards discovery. The only thing which he brought back was a slight knowledge of local geography. He had seen something of New York—from the streets; but except to ask his way from policemen or for food from foreign waiters he had not spoken to anybody.

The next few days he spent in walking about the streets. In summing up this afternoon he came to the conclusion that there was, for him, nothing so bad in Pretoria. All the time he felt with increasing force that he was a fraud, and constantly found himself evolving schemes as to how he could shed his incognito. The question of clubs alone made him unhappy. He had always been a clubbable man; in London he belonged to a number of the best. Whenever he had been in any city where there was a club its doors had always through the forethought of some friend