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The street—River Street was the name of it, as he soon discovered—was lined with funny, half-asleep little shops. There was nothing smart about them. Their windows looked as though they were seldom washed and the goods displayed therein were often dusty and fly-specked. And then the names over the doors amused him; as “Liverwell and Nagg, Fine Groceries and Provisions,” “Huckens and Soper, Hardware,” “Jernigen’s Pharmacy, New York Prices,” “Sauerwien’s Home Bakery” and “Fogg and Frost, Stationery, Books, Periodicals, Post Cards, Lending Library and Candy.” Hands in pockets, he looked in the windows, peered up shady side streets at the half-hidden doorways and porches of comfortable, old-fashioned houses and, in short, loafed enjoyably, finding all sorts of things to interest him in this queer, hundred-year-old-town.

Presently, when he had progressed three or four blocks up the hill, he came to an uncovered bridge spanning the railroad. Below on one side, reached by a flight of steps, was a small station. He paused there above long enough to determine in which direction New York City lay, and then, as no trains came along to offer entertainment, he went on again, up and up under the wide trees. It was rather hard climbing and the day was none too cool now that he had left the river behind. And so at the next corner he entered a drug store and sank onto a stool in front of the soda fountain. While he waited for someone to appear from the dim mysteries behind the partition at the back, he amused himself by deciphering the sign on the window. YCAMRAHP S’ELTTILOOD was about the way it appeared from inside. When he had puzzled it out he glanced around the empty store and chuckled. It was, he thought, well named.