I believe that I am now safe. This part of Columbia Street is not muchvisited by any people who ever knew me. The other end is in GrandStreet. I doubt whether any of my acquaintance have vivid recollectionof that end either. As for myself, I was aware of neither end normiddle till three days ago. Being in Broadway, with an infinite terrorhanging on my shoulders like a cloak--starting at every louder voiceof man, woman, or child---recoiling from every rapidly approachingstranger who looked me in the face--I naturally enough wished to getaway--any where out of the bustle. On my left hand was Grand Street;to turn into it was the most obvious method of escaping from Broadway.So I _did_ turn. For a block beyond Brooks's great limbo of possiblebut undeveloped pantaloons Grand Street keeps a fashionable air. Thusfar are whiffs of Broadway sucked into its draft; thus far you meetBroadway faces; thus far you are reminded of Broadway---are not quiteat ease with the idea of being out of it--may at any moment beaccosted by somebody you have met before on the great pave. I walkedfaster, therefore. Broadway began to fade out; the Bowery characterbecome slowly dominant. I reached--I crossed the Bowery. Now I beganto breathe freer. I was pretty sure--growing surer--that I should notbe recognized; and the cloak lifted from my shoulders. The terror didnot leave me, but it followed quietly afar off.A strange place is the part of Grand Street I was going through now,to be sure! Quite a Broadway by itself, though not _the_ Broadway,thank Heaven! but a sort of shabby Broadway come to New York to visitits merchant prince-cousin; and not being recognized as a connection,going off in a huff and setting up for itself--the Broadway of theeast to west, entirely independent of the north to south aristocrat.Or to the speculative mind it might seem an old shell shed by Broadwaythe Magnificent thirty years ago, while marble and Albert granite wereunconceived--a shell captured by the hermit crab called Grand Street,and peacefully lived in ever since; the ghost of old Broadway, asknown to our fathers, reappearing across the track of young Broadway,yet a ghost, sociable, responsive, fearless of daylight, not to belaid. All such thoughts as these whirled through my brain as I strodealong with nervous, devious feet, and they seemed to fight back for ashort farther distance _the terror_. I hailed them gladly, therefore,and indulged them.Here were tailors, from the plethora of their shops evidentlyrejoicing in abundant custom, famous, blessed, well-to-do; and allthis within the world of Grand Street--elsewhere unknown. So manygreen-grocers, with fresh Bermuda potatoes and cucumbers piled up infront of them, supplying a class of citizens who never gave onethought to Washington Market. So many celebrated doctors, all in blackand gilt on the dull sides of the two-story brick houses. Dentists, ongreat door-plates of tarnished mock silver--and I had never heard ofthem before. Mouths filled, teeth pulled, backs clothed, childreneducated--all trades and professions going on--even a wholesale dry-goods store taking up two numbers, like a Murray Street or LibertyStreet firm, and selling dollars' worths to its small neighbors whodid the pennyworth business; and evidently none of all these dependedin the least on any other part of New York for a living. I breathedfree in Grand Street, more and more.All the baggage that it was at present convenient for my to carry wasa carpet-bag, not over heavy. I had that in my hand. What, then, wasto prevent my taking lodgings in Grand Street? I should not be tracedhere; the chances were a thousand to one against my ever seeing aknown face; and these were the qualifications which just now wouldmake the most miserable tenement worth double the most sumptuousparlor of the St. Nicholas. Why not take lodgings here?--yes, why not?As I asked myself this question I stood, with the carpet-bag in myhand, vacillating from one foot to the other, and once or twiceturning completely around. Take lodgings? Yes, to be sure. Why not?