Down he hurried into the subway station, and dropped
his tithe of tribute into the multiple maw of the Interborough. The
train was thundering in, its colored lights growing momentarily brighter
as they came down the black tunnel. The train was crammed to the doors,
for it was the rush hour and even down here the trains were crowded. Mr.
Neal edged into the nearest door and then squirmed over to a place
against the opposite door in the vestibule, where he could see people as
they came out.
The train shot again into the dark tunnels. A thousand men and women
were being hurtled at terrific thundering speed, by some strange power
but half understood, through the black corridors of the night that
reigned under old Manhattan, to some unseen goal. It was magnificent;
it was colossal; but it was uncanny. Mr. Neal had always been moved by
the romance of the subway, but tonight, in his elevation of spirit, it
seemed something of epic quality, full of a strange, unreal grandeur.
Faint red lights here and there revealed nothing of the tunnel; they but
lent mystery to dimly seen arches and darkling bastions, fleeting by the
roaring train.
They stopped a minute at Canal Street, and more people pushed into the
overcrowded car, and then the train was off again. The man pushing
against Mr.
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