Furnald Hall is the New York setting where Willie Keith crosses from civilian life into Navy training, and where a later race against the clock brings him back at a moment of personal crisis. First presented as a former law-student dormitory, it becomes a threshold: a place of entry, institutional discipline, and urgent reckoning.

Setting and First Arrival

Willie approaches Furnald Hall along a brick walk, passing the School of Journalism before descending to its entrance. The building had formerly housed law students; now a Navy chief stands at the doorway with mimeographed papers in hand, receiving men entering the V-7 program. The scene places a formal point of military intake inside an ordinary campus landscape. The chief gives Willie four clipped sheets and welcomes him to a new life. When Willie steps across the threshold, the narration likens the passage to Alice stepping through a looking glass: the physical movement is simple, but it marks his entry into a strange new world. His mother, Mrs. Keith, realizes she has forgotten an important transaction and hurries back to the door, only to be denied admission. Furnald Hall makes the separation concrete: Willie has entered an institution whose access and procedures are no longer controlled by his family.

A Place of Rules and Exceptions

Furnald Hall also appears as the setting for the consequences of Willie’s struggle to meet Navy requirements. After May Wynn rejects him, he races back into the building and reaches the entrance clock showing four minutes past twelve. Beneath it, Ensign Brain is waiting; Willie arrives panting, erect, and trembling. The clock turns the building into a measure of lost time, while the return contrasts with his first arrival: he is no longer simply beginning a new life but trying to preserve his place within its rules. At Furnald Hall, the commander considers whether extraordinary circumstances might justify an exception to the demerit system and asks Willie what has happened. Willie explains his troubles with May, including her appearance outside the fence. The institution is therefore shown not only enforcing standards but also weighing whether an individual crisis warrants flexibility. The contrast between regulation and exception is central to the building’s role in Willie’s early Navy experience.

Narrative Significance

Furnald Hall gives a recurring physical form to the transition between Willie’s former identity and military life. Its doorway first admits him while excluding his mother; later, its clock confronts him with the consequences of a deadline. The location’s significance lies less in its architecture than in these encounters with entry, time, and authority: at Furnald Hall, personal circumstances meet the impersonal demands of the Navy.