Richard stood up in the cab and looked around. He saw a congested flood of wagons, trucks, cabs, vans and street cars filling the vast space where Broadway, Sixth Avenue and Thirty-fourth street cross one another as a twenty-six inch maiden fills her twenty-two inch girdle. And still from all the cross streets they were hurrying and rattling toward the converging point at full speed, and hurling themselves into the struggling mass, locking wheels and adding their drivers imprecations to the clamour. The entire traffic of Manhattan seemed to have jammed itself around them. The oldest New Yorker among the thousands of spectators that lined the sidewalks had not witnessed a street blockade of the proportions of this one.
Im very sorry, said Richard, as he resumed his seat, but it looks as if we are stuck. They wont get this jumble loosened up in an hour. It was my fault. If I hadnt dropped the ring we
Let me see the ring, said Miss Lantry. Now that it cant be helped, I dont care. I think theatres are stupid, anyway.
At 11 oclock that night somebody tapped lightly on Anthony Rockwalls door.
Come in, shouted Anthony, who was in a red dressing-gown, reading a book of piratical adventures.
Somebody was Aunt Ellen, looking like a grey-haired angel that had been left on earth by mistake.
Theyre engaged, Anthony, she said, softly. She has promised to marry our Richard. On their way to the theatre there was a street blockade, and it was two hours before their cab could get out of it.
And oh, brother Anthony, dont ever boast of the power of money again. A little emblem of true love a little ring that symbolised unending and unmercenary affection was the cause of our Richard finding his happiness. He dropped it in the street, and got out to recover it. And before they could continue the blockade occurred. He spoke to his love and won her there while the cab was hemmed in. Money is dross compared with true love, Anthony.
All right, said old Anthony. Im glad the boy has got what he wanted. I told him I wouldnt spare any expense in the matter if
But, brother Anthony, what good could your money have done?
Sister, said Anthony Rockwall. Ive got my pirate in a devil of a scrape. His ship has just been scuttled, and hes too good a judge of the value of money to let drown. I wish you would let me go on with this chapter.
The story should end here. I wish it would as heartily as you who read it wish it did. But we must go to the bottom of the well for truth.
The story should end here. I wish it would as heartily as you who read it wish it did. But we must go to the bottom of the well for truth.
The next day a person with red hands and a blue polka-dot necktie, who called himself Kelly, called at Anthony Rockwalls house, and was at once received in the library.
Well, said Anthony, reaching for his chequebook, it was a good bilin of soap. Lets see you had $5,000 in cash.
I paid out $300 more of my own, said Kelly. I had to go a little above the estimate. I got the express wagons and cabs mostly for $5; but the trucks and two-horse teams mostly raised me to $10. The motormen wanted $10, and some of the loaded teams $20. The cops struck me hardest $50 I paid two, and the rest $20 and $25. But didnt it work beautiful, Mr. Rockwall? Im glad William A. Brady wasnt onto that little outdoor vehicle mob scene. I wouldnt want William to break his heart with jealousy. And never a rehearsal, either! The boys was on time to the fraction of a second. It was two hours before a snake could get below Greeleys[132] statue.
Thirteen hundred there you are, Kelly, said Anthony, tearing off a check. Your thousand, and the $300 you were out. You dont despise money, do you, Kelly?
Me? said Kelly. I can lick the man that invented poverty.
Anthony called Kelly when he was at the door.
You didnt notice, said he, anywhere in the tie-up, a kind of a fat boy without any clothes on shooting arrows around with a bow, did you?
Why, no, said Kelly, mystified. I didnt. If he was like you say, maybe the cops pinched him before I got there.
I thought the little rascal wouldnt be on hand, chuckled Anthony. Good-by, Kelly.
Springtime à la Carte[133]
It was a day in March.
Never, never begin a story this way when you write one. No opening could possibly be worse. It is unimaginative, flat, dry and likely to consist of mere wind. But in this instance it is allowable. For the following paragraph, which should have inaugurated the narrative, is too wildly extravagant and preposterous to be flaunted in the face of the reader without preparation.
Sarah was crying over her bill of fare.
Think of a New York girl shedding tears on the menu card!
To account for this you will be allowed to guess that the lobsters were all out, or that she had sworn ice-cream off during Lent, or that she had ordered onions, or that she had just come from a Hackett[134] matinée. And then, all these theories being wrong, you will please let the story proceed.
The gentleman who announced that the world was an oyster which he with his sword would open made a larger hit than he deserved. It is not difficult to open an oyster with a sword. But did you ever notice any one try to open the terrestrial bivalve with a typewriter? Like to wait for a dozen raw opened that way?