No one had cared, no one had long remembered, except Lanley himself, and he had remembered because some one had told him what the professor said on reading his paper.

It was nothing but, "I had supposed Lanley was intelligent." Never again had he had that professor's attention for a single instant.

This, it seemed to him, was about to happen to him again, now when it was too late in his life to do anything but despair.
He called the waiter, paid his bill and tip,--he was an extremely liberal tipper; "it's expected of us," he used to say, meaning that it was expected of people like the New York Lanleys,--and went away.
In old times he had been an inventor of many clever tricks for getting up-town by unpopular elevated trains and horse-cars that avoided the crowd, but the subway was a great leveler, and he knew no magic except to take a local in rush hours.

At three o'clock, however, even this was not necessary.

He took an express, and got off at the Grand Central, turned up Park Avenue, and then east.