ddenly on anything at all in New York as a loiterer； because he has had no time between trains。 He has fished in Manhattan’s wallet and dug out coins but has never listened to Manhattan’s breathing； never awakened to its morning； never dropped off to sleep in its night。 About 400；000 men and women e charging onto the island each weekday morning； out of the mouths of tubes and tunnels。 Not many among them have ever spent a drowsy afternoon in the great rustling oaken silence of the reading room of the Public Library； with the book elevator （like an old water wheel） spewing out books onto the trays。 They tend their furnaces of the Bowery； the fires that burn in oil drums on zero winter nights。 They may work in the financial district downtown and never see the extravagant plantings of Rockefeller Center—the daffodils7 and grape hyacinths and birches and the flags trimmed to the wind on a fine morning in spring。 Or they may work in a midtown office and may let a whole year swing round without sighting Governors Island from the sea wall。 The muter dies with tremendous mileage to his credit but he is no rover。 His entrances and exits are more devious than those in a prairie…dog village； and he calmly plays bridge while buried in the mud at the bottom of the East River。 The Long Island Rail Road alone carried forty million muters last year； but many of them were the same fellow retracing his steps。
The terrain of New York is such that a resident sometimes travels farther； in