"Say, young fellow, can you direct me to the bank?" I asked.
"Guess I kin, for a quarter," he replied, coolly.
I liked his nerve.
At the same time I expressed my surprise over the steep demand he made for such a trifling service.
"Huh," he said with a grin, "guess you can't expect a fellow to be a bank director for nothing."
He got that quarter for his smartness.
If only one keeps his ears open on the streets he is very apt to hear many queer things, and sometimes fragments of humor go floating on the breeze.
Try it once.
You'll soon realize that after all, this is something of a gay old world.
Down on Park Row, just as I was passing, an irate customer was hauling a clothing dealer over the coals.
"Say, Isaacson, you said this suit would wear like iron," I heard the customer say.
The Jew shrugged his shoulders.
"Vell, do you mean to dell me it did not?" he asked.
"Hang it, too much like iron. I've only had it a week, and see here how rusty it's become."
The same day I stopped to gaze at an astonishing picture in front of a Fourteenth Street museum, where the freaks are on exhibition day and night.
A wild-looking man came out and hurried away.
He was met by the manager, but broke loose and walked down the street, evidently out of temper.
"See here," called out the proprietor to the man in the ticket office, "what's gone wrong with the glass-eater?"
"Oh! he's struck."
"Wants more money, eh?"
"Nope, getting too toney, that's all."
"What's he up to, now?"
"Refuses what we give him—lamp chimneys ain't fastidious enough for his highness—wants cut glass," said the man in the ticket office.
While I was still smiling about the stuck-up devourer of broken glass, I ran slap into Godkin, who used to be a neighbor of ours.
Some months back he yielded to the alluring blandishments of the Jere Johnson tribe of suburban real estate men, and went over in Jersey to reside.
He certainly looked bad.
His face was pale and his eyes had a far-away expression.
"Old man," I said, anxiously, "what's ailing you? I never knew you to be sick before. Really, you ought to ask some doctor what's the matter."
"It's no use, I know it only too well. It's quick consumption," he replied, with a sigh.
I was really distressed.
Godkin, bluff and hearty, was the last man I should ever have expected to go into a decline.
"Quick consumption!" I repeated, after him, and laying a hand on his arm, sympathetically.
"Yes, having to bolt my breakfast in two gulps and hurry to catch the train for town."
While I was talking with Godkin a nervous-looking man passed us.
He had a lad along with him, and as it was a cold day the boy kept knocking his hands together to induce circulation.
This appeared to annoy grandpa.
"Tommy, stop rubbing your hands like that. The weather's not cold."
And Young America made reply:
"Well, I ain't tryin' to warm the weather—I'm a warmin' my hands, see!"
I have good cause to remember that day.
It was a red-letter occasion.
I pride myself as being as smart as the next one, and in a long experience seldom come out at the small end of the horn.
But that day—it was a terrible blow to my pride.
An auction attracted me.
I must confess that I've a sneaking liking for any stray old bargain that may be floating around.
I've got an attic full of 'em at home in the country—send 'em down there so my wife won't laugh at me.
However, up to this day, I don't think I've ever been as foolish about bidding things in as Mrs. Gerrold, who got a doorplate with the name Thompson on it, and when I asked what use it could be to her, calmly replied:
"Life is very uncertain. Who knows, Gerrold might be taken away and I might marry some man named Thompson, and this would come in very handy."
But I have purchased a white elephant.
You shall hear.
While prowling around in the auction room I ran across a little antique chest.
It struck my eye as the very thing to keep my papers in, and I thought I might squander a dollar or so for it when the time came to bid.
When I turned back the lid I found the box half-filled with packages of papers, some of which looked like deeds.
Of course I was foolish to think of treasure-trove, for who could say what valuable document a fellow might not unearth among these bundles!
A seedy-looking chap touched me on the arm.
"I beg pardon," said he, "but I hope you won't bid against me on this here chest."
"And why?" I asked, getting my back up at once.
"Because, you see, I used to be a coachman for the family, and when they busted up they owed me a part of my wages."
"Oh, yes, and now you think there may be a bonanza for you here. Well, I guess the track's free to all, and I've taken a fancy to that chest myself," I said, firmly.
He shook his head and looked angry.
The box was put up the next thing.
I've often thought that queer.
That fellow hung on like a bulldog, to the extent of his little pile, but my fighting blood was up, and if I'd been a Vanderbilt I guess I'd have gone a thousand.
I got it, though.
Locking the chest up I left it while I went to the bank and borrowed the money, some fifty-two dollars.
Yes, that was an expensive box.
It seemed so precious that I squandered another dollar and a half hiring a cab to carry it home.
My wife thought I had been to a funeral.
A little later I was of the same opinion myself.
Those stocks and bonds just brought me twenty-two cents for old paper.
Of course it was a set-up game, and they say a sucker is born every minute.
That was my minute, probably.
But I am not always such an easy mark.
I dropped into a wholesale shoe house the other day to see a friend.
Several of the salesmen were perched on boxes, taking it easy, for business had slackened.
"Hello," I remarked, "all pulled for the jury, I see."
"How's that?" asked one.
"Why, sitting on cases," I said.
Out in front I ran across two excited Hebrews.
"You called me a dead beat," said one, angrily. "You must take dot pack, sir, or suffer dose consequences."
"I never dakes anydings pack," declared the other, firmly.
"You don't dake noddings pack?"
"Never. So help me shiminy gracious."
"All right. You vas der man I've been looking for. Lend me a haluf a tollar."
I hope he got it.
I had no time just then to wait and see, for I had an errand to do downtown, a very particular one, too, for Gwendoline.
That's my niece, who runs our flat just now.
You see, my brother left his little girl with us while he ran across to London.
She's a dear little thing, but utterly spoiled.
Once in a while it is up to me to punish her, for I promised Henry to be a father to his little pet while he was gone.
The other night she was pouting and headstrong, so I set about depriving her of something she particularly desired.
Result, of course, a deluge of tears.
"It hurts me to see you cry, Gwendoline," I said, in a mournful voice, "but you understand you can't always have your own way, and do as you like."
"Oh, uncle," she sobbed, "how can you be so obstinate?"
They're all alike, these women, and bound to gain their ends by hook or by crook.
And yet sometimes they do have the most remarkable ideas about things.
I was at a reception, and having wandered in the conservatory thought myself alone, until I heard low voices behind some shrubbery.
Of course a pair of turtledoves had secreted themselves there to bill and coo—the cooing would end at the altar, but every married man knows the billing keeps right along.
Pretty soon I heard the happy youth say:
"Dearest, how do you know that you truly love me?"
And then she answered innocently:
"Why, George, don't you see, ever since I met you I've grown to admire ears that stand out."
When that girl gets married I don't think she'll need any assistance in her household work.
We changed help the other day.
I hardly know what to make of the new girl.
Sometimes I labor under the impression that she can be as dense as they make them across the water.
Then again she makes some remarks that stagger me, and on my life I'm unable to decide whether she's a fool, or takes me for one.
Her breaks are numerous.
Of course being newly landed she had never tasted ice cream, and as the first spoonful went into her mouth it came out again with violence, and tears coming into her eyes, she gasped:
"Howly mither, it do burn!"
Why, it was only this morning I wanted to consult my wife about something or other.
Of course she could not be found.
It's always thus.
But I am not the man to complain.
With the determination that has always distinguished mynoble line of ancestry, I started in to search from one end of the flat to the other.
This brought me to the kitchen, where lovely Nora was diligently bending her back over the washtubs.
"Can you tell me of my wife's whereabouts?" I asked.
She looked puzzled, but only for a moment, and then smiling broadly, said:
"Faith, to till yees the truth, I do belave they're in the wash, sur."
However, I've run across some things that won't wash.
We had a regular seance one night last week at the house of a great friend of mine called Harper. It was very interesting.
The professor who conducted the exercises was a genius, and he came mighty near converting some of the ladies to his extraordinary way of thinking.
I think Harper's wife was anxious to be a convert.
At any rate I heard her eagerly saying to the gentleman with the long hair and the occult eye:
"I have always believed in dreams, professor."
"Ah!" said he, delighted,"then perhaps you too have had some psychological experience?"
"Indeed, I did—a most remarkable one in particular," she gushed.
"Prophetic?"
"Yes."
"I should greatly like to hear it."
"One night I dreamed that the sky suddenly blazed with light; the heavens were filled with a thronging host, a trumpet sounded, the dead arose from their graves, and then a voice shouted: 'Something terrible is going to happen!'"
"Well?" he asked, "and it came to pass?"
"Why, the very next day our cook left."
I felt very sorry for the professor—he laughed, of course, but during the rest of the evening I noticed he fought shy of Mrs. Harper's company.
And the best of it was that lady actually believed in the realization of her prophecy.
I know Harper thought it a dire calamity when he had to subsist for a whole week on provenderfashioned after the methods in vogue among cooking-school graduates.
When he was a little younger Harper used to be quite a clubman.
Habits of his bachelor days were hard to shake off.
I had often wondered how he came to suddenly reform, and when my wife told me recently, as a great secret, I have come to feel a new respect for the fertility of resource as shown in the gentler sex.
Mrs. Harper used strategy, where another little woman, less wise, might have tried expostulation and entreaty without effect, for most men dislike the tyranny of tears.
I'll tell you what she did.
Before going to bed she drew two easy chairs close together by the parlor fire.
Then she took one of Dick's cigars and held a match to it, until the room got a faint odor of smoke.
Harper casually asked the next morning who had dropped in and looked at her in a funny way when she said no one.
But he never went out another evening without Mrs. Harper.
Now, I call that as smart a bit of diplomacy as Napoleon ever exhibited in his campaigns, don't you?
Harper lives in Brooklyn.
This gives him the privileges of a landed proprietor.
Why, think of it, the nabob even owns a reel of garden hose, and when he comes home weary, in the evening of a hot, dusty day, he can find relaxation to body and mind by sprinkling the streets in front of his house.
The first time I was over there, I found him taking a turn at this thing.
There is a fascination about it, you know.
At first I joked him unmercifully about it, but wound up by offering to show him a few stunts in that line which proved how I had graduated as a past master in the art.
While we were chatting his little boy came along.
He seemed to be in tears about something.
"What's wrong, my son? I thought you had gone with your mother on an errand," said Harper.
"She sent me home to change my stockings," he blubbered.
"Why, what's the matter with them?"
"They's put on wrong side out."
"Hold on," I exclaimed, "that's easily remedied, if you will permit me," and I turned the hose on him.
That little event brought to my mind the narrow escape I had recently.
Through the carelessness on the part of a gentleman who was demonstrating the wonderful abilities of his patent liquid fire extinguisher, my clothes caught fire.
Well, that, you know, is no joke.
Many a poor chap has burned up before he could collect his wits and roll himself up in a rug.
But I must confess, the fellow who was to blame kept his head, and knew just what to do.
He slapped a little stream of his magic mixture on me, and before you could say Jack Robinson, I was saved.
Of course he apologized.
I felt like thrashing him, but, as he was a brother of my best friend, the pawnbroker, I forbore.
"I'm awful sorry, old boy," he said, "but no great damage is done, and I hope you're not angry with me."
"No, but to tell you the truth, I feel awfully put out," I replied.
Harper has another boy, about the age of my youngest, and like all Brooklyn lads he is precocious.
He came in while I was there, crying for keeps.
"Hello, what's happened?" asked his father.
"Been fightin' again."
"With that Irish boy, I suppose."
"Yep, I'm bound to lick him yet."
"Well, you seem to have come out second best this time. But what's the use crying—tears do no good," said Harper, thinking to make him more manly.
"All right," spluttered the boy as well as his cut lip would allow him, "but I guess if you'd gone and got whaled you'd blubber, too."
Harper was telling me about Jerry's experience at school. Jerry is the little chap who put his stockings wrong side out that afternoon.
I thought it was rather a joke on Harper, though he refuses to look at it that way.
Well, the teacher gave each of the little kids a good, big healthy word to write down.
Then they were expected to look up the definition in the dictionary, and write out a complete sentence containing it.
Jerry, he was given the word "anonymous," without a name, and when the teacher read what he had written on his strip of paper, she thought it was worth the while to send it to Mr. Harper for denial.
This was Jerry's sentence:
"The new baby at our house is anonymous."
Still that was unintentional humor.
Nothing delights me more than to accompany a friend on some afternoon excursion to the country.
This is especially true if he chances to be thinking of finding a house in the suburbs.
Recently I performed this sad rite with Hollingsworth, a legal friend of mine.
Among other places where he took me was a town in Jersey which I dare not name for fear of being lynched.
At any rate it was a dead herring.
Once a boom had set in, and streets were laid off in the most extravagant fashion, but for years the place had been going to the bad.
The real estate man had exhausted his resources, and as a last card he said, desperately:
"But you certainly must admit that the town is well laid out."
"Oh! we agree you've done the proper thing," I remarked. "When a town is dead it's only right to have it well laid out."
That real estate man was offended.
But then levity at a funeral is, I suppose, out of place.
There was a dentist in the town who seemed to have a little ambition, for he planted a sign in front of his office bearing the legend:
"Teeth inserted for five dollars."
"I call that dear," I remarked.
"How so?" asked Hollingsworth.
"Why, I've got a brindle dog out in the country that I'll guarantee to do the job every time for nothing."
While that real estate man was showing us the beauties of the broad fields we made an unfortunate acquaintance with a gentleman cow.
Run—well, we did that everlastingly.
But the bull caught up with poor Hollingsworth.
I expected to see him gored to death.
That was when I forgot he was a lawyer, and used to holding every charge.
He clutched Mr. Bull by the horns, and I hardly knew whether to laugh or be frightened when I actually saw him riding the beast.
Finally he was assisted over the fence.
We hurried to him, anxious to learn whether he had been injured seriously.
Beyond a few scratches, and a tear or so in his garments, he seemed to be all right.
Of course I warmly congratulated him on his abilities as a prize bull-baiter.
He was a little dazed—I guess you would have been, too, after such a warm experience.
"Say, am I awake—was this thing the genuine article or did it only exist in my imagination?" he asked.
I thought of how he rode that all bovine like a Centaur, and hastened to reply:
"Well, if it wasn't real, it's certainly a striking example of a man being carried away by his imagination, that's all."
On the way home after that trip, Hollingsworth was quite gay.
I've often wondered whether it came from his being so well shaken up by the bull, or because he had successfully evaded the snares of that smart real estate agent.
"Did you notice it was a colored man who gave our friend Joblots his letters at the post office?" he asked.
I replied that I had been surprised to see that the residents of a town in Jersey had a negro postmaster.
"Oh! he's only an assistant. But you'd be surprised still more if you realized his real character."
"Would I?"
"Because everyone knows he's a blackmailer."
"That's serious, isn't it?"
"And it isn't the worst, either."
"Why, he must be a hard citizen—what else does he do?"
"Joblots says his wife takes hush money."
"Bribery, eh?"
"You see, she's one of the nurses at the orphan asylum."
By the way, before I forget, I want to tell you about a man I met this morning. He followed the funniest profession you ever heard of.
He appealed to me for help, saying times were hard and he could find no employment at his profession.
"What are you?" I asked him.
"An oculist," he replied.
He looked so seedy that I was surprised.
"An oculist, eh? How do you make that out?" I asked.
"I take the eyes out of potatoes," he said.
Well, I got him a job as scullion in a beanery.
He had the whitest hair and mustache you ever saw, and told me it had come in a night through a scare, that he nearly died from fright—now do you believe that?
Of course you do.
Why, more than once you've seen an old widower's hair suddenly turn from gray to black about five months after he buried the partner of his joys and woes, and he didn't dye from fright, either.
Say, did any of you people ever strike a prohibition town?
Any of you that have done so will sympathize with me, for I had a terrible experience of that sort when on a tour last winter.
To save my life I couldn't get anything stronger than Sparrowvinatis; that's a drink they have in those freak towns.
Well, sir, I spied a braw Scotchman selling tickets at a theatre door.
I gloated.
I made a bee line for him.
I plagued him with questions until he was the maddest man in the United States.
Then I went away feeling better.
Yes, friends, if you ever get stranded in a temperance town, do as I did, stir up a little hot Scotch.
It'll do you good.
I went to a dinner in that same town.
One fellow proposed a toast:
"May the trade of this town always be trodden under foot!"
Drunk? Oh, no, he wasn't drunk. You see they had a dozen big carpet manufacturies there, and——
Dear, dear, dear! Why, here's a hole in my coat. That puts me in mind of Sunday school—you know we learned long ago when we were good little boys and went to Sunday school, that the prophet rent his clothes. I guess he must have been a poor man and couldn't afford to buy 'em. That's nothing against old Elijah, is it?
Say, did you ever get up against the first-class lunatic who is forever telling us about the city man's smartness and the country man's dullness?
Let me tell you an experience of mine that gives the lie direct to such an idea.
It happened one night as I was standing near the ticket box of a swell Eastern theatre.
The play was "The Forty Thieves."
A big, raw-boned Jerseyman strode into the place, as though he had made up his mind to squander some of his hard-earned cash in order to see the really gorgeous performance.
Sliding up to the box office I heard him demand one of the best seats and laid down a five-dollar bill. A coupon and three dollars was handed to him. When he asked what the ticket cost and was told that it was two dollars, it was evident that he expected to pay half a dollar at most.
"Two dollars to see the forty thieves, eh?" he repeated.
"Yes, sir," said the box-office man.
"Well, keep your durned seat," exclaimed the man from Jersey. "I don't think I care to see the other thirty-nine."
Then there's the elevator boy in our apartment house, who was born and brought up in the city.
He had a little flag pinned on his coat, and I was joking him on his patriotism.
"What have you ever done for your country, Bill?" I asked.
Would you believe it, that urchin had the nerve to look me wickedly in the eye and say:
"Well, I guess I've raised a good many families, sir."
On the train I met a man I used to know.
After we had been chatting about generations a while, I asked:
"How about that wedding out in your town that I saw mentioned in the papers—did it come off without a hitch?"
"Well, I guess so."
"Everybody pleased, of course, as usual?"
"Everybody nothing, everybody as mad as hornets, you mean. The groom didn't show up, the bride got screeching hysterics, and the father's been prowling round with a shotgun ever since," said my friend.
"But see here—you said it went off well?" I broke in.
"No, I didn't. You asked if it went without a hitch and I assented, for how could there be a hitch without the bridegroom."
But, say, I must tell you about being in court the other day.
The smart lawyer had the witness in hand, and it appeared to be his plan of campaign to impeach the man's testimony, by showing what a bad citizen he was.
"Now," said he, very deliberately, "will you have the goodness in conclusion, Mr. Gallagher, to answer me a few questions; and be pleased to remember, sir, that you are on your oath, and have sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
"Certainly, sor," replied the witness, whom I thought an honest-looking fellow, though hardly smart enough to hold his own against a lawyer's search-light methods.
"Now, Mr. Gallagher, we have reason to believe that at the present time there is a female living with you who is known in the neighborhood as Mrs. Gallagher. Kindly tell the jury if what I say is true?"
"It is, sor."
"Ah! yes, and Mr. Gallagher, is she under your protection?"
"Sure."
"Now, on your oath, do you maintain her?"
"I do."
"And have you ever been married to her?"
"I have not."
The lawyer smiled just here, with the proud consciousness of having rendered that man's testimony not worthy of being taken into consideration.
"That is all, Mr. Gallagher, you may step down," he said.
"One moment, please," remarked the opposing counsel; "with the permission of the court I would like to ask a question."
"Granted," said the judge.
"Mr. Gallagher, remembering that you are on oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, be pleased to state the relation which this objectionable female bears to you."
"She's me grandmother, sure," said Gallagher.
In Central Park I saw a policeman wheeling a baby carriage, with the little cherub sound asleep inside.
Possibly the nurse had eloped with another copper, and this chap was taking the abandoned infant to the station that it might be claimed.
"Why are you arresting a little child like that?" I asked the officer.
"Kidnaping," he said, with a grin, pointing to the slumbering baby.
Don't look round but let me whisper. There's an ancient couple at the back of the hall enjoying a basket-lunch. That's what I call combining pleasure with lunch. Now at the place where I dine we do things differently. There we combine business with lunch. The legend over the portals of the restaurant reads:
"Business Luncheons."
I suppose they make that candid announcement because it's anything but a pleasure to make way with what they serve there.
The other day when I dined there the waiter came round and asked:
"What are you going to have?"
"I guess a beefsteak—but see here, waiter, not a small one. I'm that nervous to-day every little thing upsets me."
"Pardon me for asking, sir," said the waiter, between the courses, "but what's made your eye black and blue? Perhaps you've been having a little affair with the gloves."
"Yes," I replied, carelessly; "I've been going through an operation at the hands of a knockulist, that's all."
Then I turned my attention to the roast chicken, which reminded me of another affair.
You shall hear it.
Teddy O'Toole, who gave me so much amusement last summer while I was sojourning in a mountain town, has been at it again, I hear.
He is a sad case.
What do you think, his last trick was but to play good old Father Ryan for a dinner.
Let me tell you the ingenious way the graceless scamp went about it.
First of all, being hard set by hunger, what doeshe do but steal a fat young fowl from the priest's henyard.
Having wrung its neck he presented himself before the reverend father, looking sadly repentant.
"What now, Teddy?" asked the old man, who was growing weary of wrestling with the devil as personified in the vagrant.
O'Toole, with his head hanging low, confessed that in an evil moment he had stolen a fowl, and then, stung by the lashing of his conscience, had come to confess his wrong.
The father, of course, began to lecture him.
Then Teddy, as if desirous of doing penance, offered the fowl to his reverence, which shocked Father Ryan more, and he added to his words of reproach.
"But faith, phat shall I do with the burrd at all?" asked Teddy.
"First, return it to the owner."
"Indade and I've done the same, and be me sowl he's actually refused to resave the purty creature."
"That is strange, and complicates matters. Stay,there is one other chance left. Find some poor widow who is in need, and present her with the wretched bird."
"And thin will ye confess me?" demanded Teddy.
"Of a surety, since the good deed will have balanced the evil one," returned the priest.
So away posted that miserable sinner to the house of the Widow McCree, and she only too gladly cooked the bird, since she had the fire handy.
Thus pooling their resources they fared merrily.
And I am told on good authority that Teddy, determined to do the thing up as it should be, presented himself before the priest on the same evening, related how he had given the fowl to a poor widow in need, and received absolution as meekly as though he might be but an erring saint instead of a scheming sinner.
His pranks always amuse me.
Though on more than one occasion I've found the laugh didn't seem to come quite so spontaneously, when the joke was on me.
This happened on a recent occasion.
I thought I had enough common sense about me not to be caught by such a picayune piece of tom-foolery, but no doubt at the time my mind was wrestling with some of the weighty questions that daily beset a professional man.
At any rate I fell an easy victim.
And I feel foolish every time I think of the affair.
There were seven gay boys in Snyders when I entered, and having seen me coming, through the glass door, they seemed to be engaged in serious discussion.
"Here he is now—he can settle the argument himself," said Tom Radcliffe.
"What's it all about?" I asked, innocently.
"Why, Craigie here said you understand German, and I told him he was badly mistaken, and that I didn't believe you could translate five words of it."
"Oh! well, I don't pretend to be a scholar, but I've rubbed against some Teutons in my day, and may say without egotism that I've conversed in German," I replied, for it rather galled me to have Radcliffe say that.
"Bosh!" exclaimed my detractor, "I've an idea the simplest sentence would stump you. Say, what does 'Was wollen Sie haben' mean, anyhow?"
"Why, what will you have?"