I said I had nothing to declare.
"Open your valise," the customs inspector told me.
I was obeying automatically, a little bewildered by the strangeness around me and the confusion and the new noises, and not quite sure that I was awake and actually in the city whose incredible skyline had appeared with such startling effect with the bow of the Celtic pushed through the fog blanket off Sandy Hook. Between the liner's hull and the roof of the customs shed part of this skyline was still visible. I was wondering which was the Singer Building, and if the Flat Iron building was among these towering concrete shafts that were trembling in the heat haze.
"Nothing to declare, eh?" The inspector was holding up my 5-chamber revolver.
While I was explaining that I was not in the habit of travelling unarmed in foreign countries another inspector joined the first. As they examined the weapon that had been a better friend than his wife to Mr. Carry I had visions of deportation without getting any farther than the customs house.
"And the ammunition?" asked the second inspector. "I'll have to get some in New York," I said.
"What you going to do—shoot Indians on Broadway?" said the first.
He made a beckoning sign, and with consternation I saw a large policeman coming over to us. I glanced back at the hull of the Celtic, but there were too many people between me and the gangplank to make a dash for it. The policeman took the revolver. People began to gather around us and it. They stared at me the way you would stare at a fellow passenger found in possession of an infernal machine.
"1878, percussion-cap," said the policeman, with a strong brogue.
"He admitted he intended to buy ammunition in Noo York," said one of the inspectors.
"Faith," said the policeman, "the only place he'll find it for this arum is in the Mooseum of Natooral Histhory."
They began to laugh. And then the three of them were helping me get my things packed again. The inspectors fastened my portmanteau while I shoved a blackthorn walking stick under the straps.
"I'm thinkin' it's ferninst thowl pistol I'd sooner be than that shilelagh," said the policeman. "That's the genuyne article—three spouts outa every knob. Pull it after ye strike. Tear the thrunk offovan ilephant, that would."
"I got it in Roscrea," I said.
"You don't tell me, now," he said. "Isn't it in Roscrea I used to work meself in the tannery when I was a boy."
He came along with me to get my money changed. When my pounds, shillings, and pence had become dollars, dimes, and nickels I showed him the address of the gentleman in New Haven my father had given me a letter to, and he wrote out directions how to get there. He said wherever I went to let the world know where I was from, and I would have no trouble.
"What with all the damn foreigners coming to the United States, if it wasn't for the Irish there'd be neither law nor order in America," he said.
When he had counted my change he picked out a nickel. "Whenever you're hungry, here's the price of a good meal," he said.
"But that's only..." I said, and began to calculate.
"In the States we've an Irish institootion as great as the Knights of Columbus or the Pope himself," he said. "FREE LUNCH."
"Free?" I said.
"Free as the birds of thair," he said and dropped the nickel back into my palm, "In every saloon in Noo York and out of it the man with the price of a beer in his pocket can fill his guts free of charge while he's drinking it."
We parted like old friends. When he had gone I felt very much alone and a little afraid, but thrilled because I was alone and the great adventure had begun.
Out there across the street, beyond the incessant stream of lorries, trollycars, automobiles and pedestrians, a domed uptown subway entrance squatted at the foot of soaring masonry. And then I was standing before its yawning mouth, peering down anxiously into the white tiled tunnel of its throat, from which rumblings came up to me from the city's bowels, and the smell of dry air peculiar to subways. I set my portmanteau down, wiped my forehead and consulted the written direction my Roscrea friend had given me : Uptown subway to 42nd Street 5 cents. Grand Central station for your New Haven train. I picked up my portmanteau and plunged down the stairway which trembled under my feet as two express trains swept by underneath.