Thanks, Your Highness, said the young man, seriously. It doesnt look as if I would need that palace on the Hudson, but I appreciate your offer, just the same.
Prince Michael sank into deep slumber. His battered hat rolled from the bench to the ground. The young man lifted it, placed it over the frowsy face and moved one of the grotesquely relaxed limbs into a more comfortable position. Poor devil! he said, as he drew the tattered clothes closer about the Princes breast.
Sonorous and startling came the stroke of 9 from the clock tower. The young man sighed again, turned his face for one last look at the house of his relinquished hopes and cried aloud profane words of holy rapture.
From the middle upper window blossomed in the dusk a waving, snowy, fluttering, wonderful, divine emblem of forgiveness and promised joy.
By came a citizen, rotund, comfortable, home-hurrying, unknowing of the delights of waving silken scarfs on the borders of dimly-lit parks.
Will you oblige me with the time, sir? asked the young man; and the citizen, shrewdly conjecturing his watch to be safe, dragged it out and announced:
Twenty-nine and a half minutes past eight, sir.
And then, from habit, he glanced at the clock in the tower, and made further oration.
By George! that clocks half an hour fast! First time in ten years Ive known it to be off. This watch of mine never varies a
But the citizen was talking to vacancy. He turned and saw his hearer, a fast receding black shadow, flying in the direction of a house with three lighted upper windows.
And in the morning came along two policemen on their way to the beats they owned. The park was deserted save for one dilapidated figure that sprawled, asleep, on a bench. They stopped and gazed upon it.
Its Dopy Mike, said one. He hits the pipe every night. Park bum for twenty years. On his last legs, I guess.
The other policeman stooped and looked at something crumpled and crisp in the hand of the sleeper.
Gee! he remarked. Hes doped out a fifty-dollar bill, anyway. Wish I knew the brand of hop that he smokes.
And then Rap, rap, rap! went the club of realism against the shoe soles of Prince Michael, of the Electorate of Valleluna.
Sisters of the Golden Circle
The Rubberneck Auto[181] was about ready to start. The merry top-riders had been assigned to their seats by the gentlemanly conductor. The sidewalk was blockaded with sightseers who had gathered to stare at sightseers, justifying the natural law that every creature on earth is preyed upon by some other creature.
The megaphone man raised his instrument of torture; the inside of the great automobile began to thump and throb like the heart of a coffee drinker. The top-riders nervously clung to the seats; the old lady from Valparaiso, Indiana, shrieked to be put ashore. But, before a wheel turns, listen to a brief preamble through the cardiaphone, which shall point out to you an object of interest on lifes sightseeing tour.
Swift and comprehensive is the recognition of white man for white man in African wilds; instant and sure is the spiritual greeting between mother and babe; unhesitatingly do master and dog commune across the slight gulf between animal and man; immeasurably quick and sapient are the brief messages between one and ones beloved. But all these instances set forth only slow and groping interchange of sympathy and thought beside one other instance which the Rubberneck coach shall disclose. You shall learn (if you have not learned already) what two beings of all earths living inhabitants most quickly look into each others hearts and souls when they meet face to face.
The gong whirred, and the Glaring-at-Gotham car moved majestically upon its instructive tour.
On the highest, rear seat was James Williams, of Cloverdale, Missouri, and his Bride.
Capitalise it, friend typo that last word word of words in the epiphany of life and love. The scent of the flowers, the booty of the bee, the primal drip of spring waters, the overture of the lark, the twist of lemon peel on the cocktail of creation such is the bride. Holy is the wife; revered the mother; galliptious is the summer girl but the bride is the certified check among the wedding presents that the gods send in when man is married to mortality.
The car glided up the Golden Way. On the bridge of the great cruiser the captain stood, trumpeting the sights of the big city to his passengers. Wide-mouthed and open-eared, they heard the sights of the metropolis thundered forth to their eyes. Confused, delirious with excitement and provincial longings, they tried to make ocular responses to the megaphonic ritual. In the solemn spires of spreading cathedrals they saw the home of the Vanderbilts; in the busy bulk of the Grand Central depot they viewed, wonderingly, the frugal cot of Russell Sage[182]. Bidden to observe the highlands of the Hudson, they gaped, unsuspecting, at the upturned mountains of a new-laid sewer. To many the elevated railroad was the Rialto[183], on the stations of which uniformed men sat and made chop suey of your tickets. And to this day in the outlying districts many have it that Chuck Connors, with his hand on his heart, leads reform; and that but for the noble municipal efforts of one Parkhurst, a district attorney, the notorious Bishop Potter gang would have destroyed law and order from the Bowery to the Harlem River[184].