De Vernay of Paris." Those were the earliest and the "big four." The list of successors is a long one, but that certain something, that indefinable quality, which had made the first books great trash was irrevocably gone.

Of all the flamboyant characters of the tales Mr.
Barnes was deservedly the most popular, and at such times as he was not winning international rifle matches at Monte Carlo, or racing about Europe in respectable pursuit of desirable young ladies, he inhabited a dwelling on lower Fifth Avenue.

Practically all Fifth Avenue were the scenes of "Miss Nobody of Nowhere," with its charming heroine and her adopted parents, its wicked English nobleman, and its comical little Anglo-maniac dude.

Under some name or other a "Gussie Van Beekman" was a necessary ingredient of every Gunter novel.
It is a far cry from Gunter to Henry James, though each wrought according to his lights, and served his purpose in his time.

It was when the Avenue was in its infancy that Dr.Sloper, of James's "Washington Square," went to live in the brick house with white stone trimmings, that, practically unchanged, may be seen today, diagonally across the street from the Arch.