The Four Million
to define the character before. It would be difficult to point you out
an exact specimen. I would say, offhand, that it is a man who had a
hopeless case of the peculiar New York disease of wanting to see and
know. At 6 o’clock each day life begins with him. He follows rigidly
the conventions of dress and manners; but in the business of poking his
nose into places where he does not belong he could give pointers to a
civet cat or a jackdaw. He is the man who has chased Bohemia about the
town from rathskeller to roof garden and from Hester street to Harlem
until you can’t find a place in the city where they don’t cut their
spaghetti with a knife. Your ‘Man About Town’ has done that. He is
always on the scent of something new. He is curiosity, impudence and
omnipresence. Hansoms were made for him, and gold-banded cigars; and
the curse of music at dinner. There are not so many of him; but his
minority report is adopted everywhere.
“I’m glad you brought up the subject; I’ve felt the influence of this
nocturnal blight upon our city, but I never thought to analyse it
before. I can see now that your ‘Man About Town’ should have been
classified long ago. In his wake spring up wine agents and cloak
models; and the orchestra plays ‘Let’s All Go Up to Maud’s’ for him, by
request, instead of Händel. He makes his rounds every evening; while
you and I see the elephant once a week. When the cigar store is raided,
he winks at the officer, familiar with his ground, and walks away
immune, while you and I search among the Presidents for names, and
among the stars for addresses to give the desk sergeant.”
My friend, the critic, paused to acquire breath for fresh eloquence. I
seized my advantage.
“You have classified him,” I cried with joy. “You have painted his
portrait in the gallery of city types. But I must meet one face to
face. I must study the Man About Town at first hand. Where shall I find
him? How shall I know him?”
Without seeming to hear me, the critic went on. And his cab-driver was
waiting for his fare, too.
“He is the sublimated essence of Butt-in; the refined, intrinsic
extract of Rubber; the concentrated, purified, irrefutable, unavoidable
spirit of Curiosity and Inquisitiveness. A new sensation is the breath
in his nostrils; when his experience is exhausted he explores new
fields with the indefatigability of a—”
“Excuse me,” I interrupted, “but can you produce one of this type? It
is a new thing to me. I must study it. I will search the town over
until I find one. Its habitat must be here on Broadway.”
“I am about to dine here,” said my friend. “Come inside, and if there
is a Man About Town present I will point him out to you. I know most of
the regular patrons here.”
“I am not dining yet,” I said to him. “You will excuse me. I am going
to find my Man About Town this night if I have to rake New York from
the Battery to Little Coney Island.”
I left the hotel and walked down Broadway. The pursuit of my type gave
a pleasant savour of life and interest to the air I breathed. I was
glad to be in a city so great, so complex and diversified. Leisurely
and with something of an air I strolled along with my heart expanding
at the thought that I was a citizen of great Gotham, a sharer in its
magnificence and pleasures, a partaker in its glory and prestige.
I turned to cross the street. I heard something buzz like a bee, and
then I took a long, pleasant ride with Santos-Dumont.
When I opened my eyes I remembered a smell of gasoline, and I said
aloud: “Hasn’t it passed yet?”
A hospital nurse laid a hand that was not particularly soft upon my
brow that was not at all fevered. A young doctor came along, grinned,
and handed me a morning newspaper.
“Want to see how it happened?” he asked cheerily. I read the article.
Its headlines began where I heard the buzzing leave off the night
before. It closed with these lines:
“—Bellevue Hospital, where it was said that his injuries were not
serious. He appeared to be a typical Man About Town.”
THE COP AND THE ANTHEM
On his bench in Madison Square Soapy moved uneasily. When wild geese
honk high of nights, and when women without sealskin coats grow kind to
their husbands, and when Soapy moves uneasily on his bench in the park,
you may know that winter is near at hand.
A dead leaf fell in Soapy’s lap. That was Jack Frost’s card. Jack is
kind to the regular denizens of Madison Square, and gives fair warning
of his annual call. At the corners of four streets he hands his
pasteboard to the North Wind, footman of the mansion of All Outdoors,
so that the inhabitants thereof may make ready.
Soapy’s mind became cognisant of the fact that the time had come for
him to resolve himself into a singular Committee of Ways and Means to
provide against the coming rigour. And therefore he moved uneasily on
his bench.
The hibernatorial ambitions of Soapy were not of the highest. In them
there were no considerations of Mediterranean cruises, of soporific
Southern skies drifting in the Vesuvian Bay. Three months on the Island
was what his soul craved. Three months of assured board and bed and
congenial company, safe from Boreas and bluecoats, seemed to Soapy the
essence of things desirable.
For years the hospitable Blackwell’s had been his winter quarters. Just
as his more fortunate fellow New Yorkers had bought their tickets to
Palm Beach and the Riviera each winter, so Soapy had made his humble
arrangements for his annual hegira to the Island. And now the time was
come. On the previous night three Sabbath newspapers, distributed
beneath his coat, about his ankles and over his lap, had failed to
repulse the cold as he slept on his bench near the spurting fountain in
the ancient square. So the Island loomed big and timely in Soapy’s
mind. He scorned the provisions made in the name of charity for the
city’s dependents. In Soapy’s opinion the Law was more benign than
Philanthropy. There was an endless round of institutions, municipal and
eleemosynary, on which he might set out and receive lodging and food
accordant with the simple life. But to one of Soapy’s proud spirit the
gifts of charity are encumbered. If not in coin you must pay in
humiliation of spirit for every benefit received at the hands of
philanthropy. As Caesar had his Brutus, every bed of charity must have
its toll of a bath, every loaf of bread its compensation of a private
and personal inquisition. Wherefore it is better to be a guest of the
law, which though conducted by rules, does not meddle unduly with a
gentleman’s private affairs.
Soapy, having decided to go to the Island, at once set about
accomplishing his desire. There were many easy ways of doing this. The
pleasantest was to dine luxuriously at some expensive restaurant; and
then, after declaring insolvency, be handed over quietly and without
uproar to a policeman. An accommodating magistrate would do the rest.
Soapy left his bench and strolled out of the square and across the
level sea of asphalt, where Broadway and Fifth Avenue flow together. Up
Broadway he turned, and halted at a glittering café, where are gathered
together nightly the choicest products of the grape, the silkworm and
the protoplasm.
Soapy had confidence in himself from the lowest button of his vest
upward. He was shaven, and his coat was decent and his neat black,
ready-tied four-in-hand had been presented to him by a lady missionary
on Thanksgiving Day. If he could reach a table in the restaurant
unsuspected success would be his. The portion of him that would show
above the table would raise no doubt in the waiter’s mind. A roasted
mallard duck, thought Soapy, would be about the thing—with a bottle of
Chablis, and then Camembert, a demi-tasse and a cigar. One dollar for
the cigar would be enough. The total would not be so high as to call
forth any supreme manifestation of revenge from the café management;
and yet the meat would leave him filled and happy for the journey to
his winter refuge.
But as Soapy set foot inside the restaurant door the head waiter’s eye
fell upon his frayed trousers and decadent shoes. Strong and ready
hands turned him about and conveyed him in silence and haste to the
sidewalk and averted the ignoble fate of the menaced mallard.
Soapy turned off Broadway. It seemed that his route to the coveted
island was not to be an epicurean one. Some other way of entering limbo
must be thought of.
At a corner of Sixth Avenue electric lights and cunningly displayed
wares behind plate-glass made a shop window conspicuous. Soapy took a
cobblestone and dashed it through the glass. People came running around
the corner, a policeman in the lead. Soapy stood still, with his hands
in his pockets, and smiled at the sight of brass buttons.
“Where’s the man that done that?” inquired the officer excitedly.
“Don’t you figure out that I might have had something to do with it?”
said Soapy, not without sarcasm, but friendly, as one greets good
fortune.
The policeman’s mind refused to accept Soapy even as a clue. Men who
smash windows do not remain to parley with the law’s minions. They take
to their heels. The policeman saw a man half way down the block running
to catch a car. With drawn club he joined in the pursuit. Soapy, with
disgust in his heart, loafed along, twice unsuccessful.
On the opposite side of the street was a restaurant of no great
pretensions. It catered to large appetites and modest purses. Its
crockery and atmosphere were thick; its soup and napery thin. Into this
place Soapy took his accusive shoes and telltale trousers without
challenge. At a table he sat and consumed beefsteak, flapjacks,
doughnuts and pie. And then to the waiter be betrayed the fact that the
minutest coin and himself were strangers.
“Now, get busy and call a cop,” said Soapy. “And don’t keep a gentleman
waiting.”
“No cop for youse,” said the waiter, with a voice like butter cakes and
an eye like the cherry in a Manhattan cocktail. “Hey, Con!”
Neatly upon his left ear on the callous pavement two waiters pitched
Soapy. He arose, joint by joint, as a carpenter’s rule opens, and beat
the dust from his clothes. Arrest seemed but a rosy dream. The Island
seemed very far away. A policeman who stood before a drug store two
doors away laughed and walked down the street.
Five blocks Soapy travelled before his courage permitted him to woo
capture again. This time the opportunity presented what he fatuously
termed to himself a “cinch.” A young woman of a modest and pleasing
guise was standing before a show window gazing with sprightly interest
at its display of shaving mugs and inkstands, and two yards from the
window a large policeman of severe demeanour leaned against a water
plug.
It was Soapy’s design to assume the role of the despicable and
execrated “masher.” The refined and elegant appearance of his victim
and the contiguity of the conscientious cop encouraged him to believe
that he would soon feel the pleasant official clutch upon his arm that
would insure his winter quarters on the right little, tight little
isle.
Soapy straightened the lady missionary’s ready-made tie, dragged his
shrinking cuffs into the open, set his hat at a killing cant and sidled
toward the young woman. He made eyes at her, was taken with sudden
coughs and “hems,” smiled, smirked and went brazenly through the
impudent and contemptible litany of the “masher.” With half an eye
Soapy saw that the policeman was watching him fixedly. The young woman
moved away a few steps, and again bestowed her absorbed attention upon
the shaving mugs. Soapy followed, boldly stepping to her side, raised
his hat and said:
“Ah there, Bedelia! Don’t you want to come and play in my yard?”
The policeman was still looking. The persecuted young woman had but to