We are about to broach the fraught saga of the Circle Line, but there is another Metropolitan spin-off that comes first, one that has always appealed to me by the baleful beauty of its name: the City Widened Lines or 'The Widened Lines' for short.

Broadway is / the typical street of america, / the typical street of the whole world. The current of the world’s life surges through it to-day. Only a short half generation ago it was entirely American, or, more properly speaking, it was, to coin a word, New Yorkian. In these early autumn days the men we see upon it, the men who have contributed to make it what it is, who control its politics, who lead its Bar, who preside over its literature and art, who write its ledgers and keep the record of its great accounts in trade and commerce with all the countries of the world, are in outward appearance an entirely different people from those of fifteen years ago.

“I understand, Tobin. Being joined is a great responsibility.” Dax stared, flushing with panic. “You . . . you know?” “Don't look so surprised. I'm an expert in xenomedicine and I've been around the quadrant once or twice.

Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies, Yet now they fright me.