1895 - The story begins: But you must know where you are going to stop, and the speaker, holding in one hand a battered tin pail, seated himself on the curbstone by the side of a small, almost disreputable-looking boy. Well, I don’t, was the decided reply. I slept in a milk-wagon last night, because I didn’t feel like walking to the Astor House, and now I haven’t made up my mind whether I’ll go to the Brunswick, or snoop ‘round for another cart. The boy with the tin pail looked at his new acquaintance in undisguised astonishment a moment, and then asked, in a tone intended to be sarcastic: Why don’ t you buy three or four of the biggest hotels, and then you could swap round when you wanted to?