As the first metallic booming fills the morning air, a taxi slithers rudely along the curb, and an elderly gentleman disembarks. His frock coat is spotless and lately pressed, although it no longer accomodates his increasing girth with the proper tailored case. If the warm spring breeze should rustle his coat tails the gardenia vendor on the opposite curb would notice that the back of the gentleman's trousers has a guilty sheen, but mercifully, there is no such mischievous breeze. The cab fare amounts to 75 cents, and the gentleman hands the driver a dollar. He is embarassed to hold out his hand for the return quarter, but he takes it, and the cabbie is disgusted. Away in a cloud of gear-teeth he goes. The old gentleman turns in a show half-circle to the big, grey building, a smile on his face. The unpleasantness is over for today. A shame about that quarter, he mutters, but necessary. He has a better use for it than as a tip. He slips it into his pocket; there is no jingle from any companion coins. Squaring his shoulders and relaxing his features into peaceful friendliness, he attacks the gradual elevation of worn stone steps. Afterward he will walk home. It will be all right, proper. Today the best people will walk, and he will walk among them and be part of them. The arched entryway swallows him.

The metallic booming continues. It is augmented from other sectors as additional bell-batteries lift up the chorus of their steel-tougued throats. It is nearly time, and the sleck-and-sturdy parade begins. With calculated smoothness, Packard follows Pierce, and Pierce follows Lincoln, with here and there in the procession a disdained Buick. At the proper spot each pauses, ejects a human cartridge or so, and moves off while the full feed belt behind fidgets for its turn. There is no hidden sheen here. No sheen in the clothing, at any rate. They are impeccable--the soft white spat, glove, nosegay--the starchy white shirt, collar, handkerchief--the black topper and morning dress coat--the sparkling shoes, still black on the soles--the pin-stripe trousers breaking at the proper inch above the instep--the soft, luxuriant Ascot--and concealed somewhere in all this the wallet, the very full wallet, the wallet full of grandfather's money (rest him), or father's money (good old Dad). Or perhaps even other people's money (poor suckers). But the sheen is still present, although better disguised. Sometimes it is in the face, where the smile is false and automatic, sometimes in drooping shoulder or eyelid, or in unjustified hauteur. No dollar bills, no returned quarters. James or William, the chauffeurs, know that today their passengers will walk the customary four or five blocks on Commonwealth Avenue or Tremont Street before the car is to cruise tactfully past and pick them up last the master's shoe begin to pinch his corn. But, under pain of dismissal, not until the world and the photographers have noted madam's attire.

It is late, and chord by chord the booming of the bell-batteries is being silenced. The taxi has found a new perch at the corner, ready to pounce out at the customer's slightest beckoning. Packard, Pierce, Lincoln, and Buick have sought refuge a block away, their white tires carefully left an inch from the curb. James or William are reading their tabloids and ogling passing maids and nurses. But the streetcar still runs. It rumbles up to the great, grey building, shudders to a violent halt, relaxes with a compressed air sign, and allows passengers to scurry off. Two women, plump, middle-aged, the kind who dress the same for every occasion, every season, every time they go out of the house. A lad whose gaudy suit calls up instant associations with bargain basements. A sour wisp of a woman, ugly and thirty, about whose person the shadow of an old maid already hangs, trying desperately to make last year's finery do. In all of them, exaggerated copies of the true styles, or else utter disregard for any sort of style. Except one amazingly patrician and good looking girl who looks out of place. But there is a sincerity and eagerness in their movements. In a twinkling, they patter up the steps and are embraced by the great carved doors which close behind them so quickly that it is impossible to view them in detail. But they will emerge again, board an orange streetcar again, demand transfers again, and rattle off again southward or eastward.

Now outside it is relatively quiet. Inside one voice talks, and many voices sing, and a thousand flowers and some heads not for one hour. Then once more--taxis, limousines, streetcars, bells, walking feet, colors. Easter Sunday again.