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He then looked more carefully at the fountain. It was a gift to the city from a dear friend of both himself and Paul, their old friend John Burlington, whose philanthropy took many practical forms for the benefit of the public. He skirted the park on his way out, and noticed a barber shop across the street in which a few days previous he had been shaved. Why that particular shop? Because therein he had been shaved by a young woman, of whom in justice it must be said she did it remarkably well. “Woman’s sphere is rapidly increasing,” he mused, “but in such matters, at what a terrible risk and sacrifice of womanly reserve; a gain in wages and publicity, a loss of refinement and the other feminine attributes. Is not woman’s head-gear sufficiently complicated already to furnish employment to experts of her own sex without attempting to scrape a man’s chin? Certainly the latter was a risky business for a woman to attempt on short notice.”

There was a hotel on the corner. He stopped to purchase a cigar, but it was too late. Too late for that, but not too late for others passing in and out. A couple passed through an inconspicuous entrance with a peculiar dim lantern in the vestibule near by, and soon disappeared. They appeared to be sneaking in, yet perfectly familiar with the premises.