I was arriving early for a dinner appointment in midtown. The cabbie made a wrong turn several blocks away, so I got out to walk. The sun was leaning over the Hudson and a skyful of coastal clouds marched over the island. One I noticed was much larger than the size of a man’s hand.

Touches, stains: That cloud began to unleash itself in propulsive drops. A big ugly modern office building offered a sheltering porch, tall but deep. Unless the rain blew horizontally we would be fine in here.

“We” were a growing crowd of rain refugees. The first claim staker …