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3、the east. It passes Union Square; and here the hoofs of the dray horses seem to thunder in unison, recalling the tread of marching hosts - Hooray! But now come the silent and terrible mountains - buildings square as forts, high as the clouds, shutting out the sky, where thousands of slaves bend over
4、 desks all day. On the ground floors are only little fruit shops and laundries and book shops, where you see copies of Littells Living Age and G. W. M. Reynolds novels in the windows. And next - poor Fourth Avenue! - the street glides into a mediaeval solitude. On each side are shops devoted to Anti
6、ostly light. Here and there from a corner saloon (lit with Jack-o-lanterns or phosphorus), stagger forth shuddering, home-bound citizens, nerved by the tankards within to their fearsome journey adown that eldrich avenue lined with the bloodstained weapons of the fighting dead. What street could live
7、 inclosed by these mortuary relics, and trod by these spectral citizens in whose sunken hearts scarce one good whoop or tra-la-la remained?Not Fourth Avenue. Not after the tinsel but enlivening glories of the Little Rialto - not after the echoing drum-beats of Union Square. There need be no tears, l
9、crumbling red-brick front, its show window heaped with oranges, tomatoes, layer cakes, pies, canned asparagus - its papier-mache lobster and two Maltese kittens asleep on a bunch of lettuce - if you care to sit at one of the little tables upon whose cloth has been traced in the yellowest of coffee s
11、is mother. One of her ancestors was a Margravine of Saxony. His father was a Tammany brave. On account of the dilution of his heredity he found that he could neither become a reigning potentate nor get a job in the City Hall. So he opened a restaurant. He was a man full of thought and reading. The b
12、usiness gave him a living, though he gave it little attention. One side of his house bequeathed to him a poetic and romantic adventure. The other have him the restless spirit that made him seek adventure. By day he was Quigg, the restaurateur. By night he was the Margrave - the Caliph - the Prince o
14、h up under his short-trimmed brown and gray beard and turned westward toward the more central life conduits of the city. In his pocket he had stored an assortment of cards, written upon, without which he never stirred out of doors. Each of those cards was good at his own restaurant for its face valu
17、 progress in search of romance to divert him, or of distress that he might aid, Quigg became aware of a fast-gathering crowd that whooped and fought and eddied at a corner of Broadway and the crosstown street that he was traversing. Hurrying to the spot he beheld a young man of an exceedingly melanc
18、holy and preoccupied demeanor engaged in the pastime of casting silver money from his pockets in the middle of the street. With each motion of the generous ones hand the crowd huddled upon the falling largesse with yells of joy. Traffic was suspended. A policman in the centre of the mob stooped ofte
23、hrow chicken feed to - Oh, curse that word chicken, and hens, feathers, roosters, eggs, and everything connected with it!Young sir, said the Margrave kindly, but with dignity, though I do not ask your confidence, I invite it. I know the world and I know humanity. Man is my study, though I do not eye
24、 him as the scientist eyes a beetle or as the philanthropist gazes at the objects of his bounty - through a veil of theory and ignorance. It is my pleasure and distraction to interest myself in the peculiar and complicated misfortunes that life in a great city visits upon my fellow-men. You may be f
25、amiliar with the history of that glorious and immortal ruler, the Caliph Harun Al Rashid, whose wise and beneficent excursions among his people in the city of Bagdad secured him the privilege of relieving so much of their distress. In my humble way I walk in his footsteps. I seek for romance and adv
26、enture in city streets - not in ruined castles or in crumbling palaces. To me the greatest marvels of magic are those that take place in mens hearts when acted upon by the furious and diverse forces of a crowded population. In your strange behavior this evening I fancy a story lurks. I read in your
27、act something deeper than the wanton wastefulness of a spendthrift. I observe in your countenance the certain traces of consuming grief or despair. I repeat - I invite your confidence. I am not without some power to alleviate and advise. Will you not trust me?Gee, how you talk! exclaimed the young m
28、an, a gleam of admiration supplanting for a moment the dull sadness of his eyes. Youve got the Astor Library skinned to a synopsis of preceding chapters. I mind that old Turk you speak of. I read The Arabian Nights when I was a kid. He was a kind of Bill Devery and Charlie Schwab rolled into one. Bu
30、ith a deep sigh, but I dont think you can help me any. Unless youre a peach at guessing its back to the Bosphorous for you on your magic linoleum. THE STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN AND THE HARNESS MAKERS RIDDLEI work in Hildebrants saddle and harness shop down in Grant Street. Ive worked there five years.
31、I get $18 a week. Thats enough to marry on, aint it? Well, Im not going to get married. Old Hildebrant is one of these funny Dutchmen - you know the kind - always getting off bum jokes. Hes got about a million riddles and things that he faked from Rogers Brothers great-grandfather. Bill Watson works
33、 the Rhine and charms the clam-diggers into the surf. Hair the color of straw matting, and eyes as black and shiny as the best harness blacking - think of that!Me? well, its either me or Bill Watson. She treats us both equal. Bill is all to the psychopathic about her; and me? - well, you saw me plat
35、rten, he is not so good by business for ein family to provide - is not that - hein? And he hands us a riddle - a conundrum, some calls it - and he chuckles interiorly and gives both of us till to-morrow morning to work out the answer to it. And he says whichever of us guesses the repartee end of it
36、goes to his house o Wednesday night to his daughters birthday party. And it means Laura for whichever of us goes, for shes naturally aching for a husband, and its either me or Bill Watson, for old Hildebrant likes us both, and wants her to marry somebody thatll carry on the business after hes stitch
38、ators. You say youre giving imitations of the old Arab guy that gave away - libraries in Bagdad. Well, now, can you whistle up a fairy thatll solve this hen query, or not?When the young man ceased the Margrave arose and paced to and fro by the park bench for several minutes. Finally he sat again, an
39、d said, in grave and impressive tones:I must confess, sir, that during the eight years that I have spent in search of adventure and in relieving distress I have never encountered a more interesting or a more perplexing case. I fear that I have overlooked hens in my researches and observations. As to
40、 their habits, their times and manner of laying, their many varieties and cross-breedings, their span of life, their -Oh, dont make an Ibsen drama of it! interrupted the young man, flippantly. Riddles - especially old Hildebrants riddles - dont have to be worked out seriously. They are light themes
41、such as Sim Ford and Harry Thurston Peck like to handle. But, somehow, I cant strike just the answer. Bill Watson may, and he may not. To-morrow will tell. Well, Your Majesty, Im glad anyhow that you butted in and whiled the time away. I guess Mr. Al Rashid himself would have bounced back if one of
43、kind of a hen lays the longest? It is a baffling problem. There is a hen, I believe, called the Plymouth Rock that -Cut it out, said the young man. The Caliph trade is a mighty serious one. I dont suppose youd even see anything funny in a preachers defense of John D. Rockefeller. Well, good night, Y
50、red Hildebrant, rocking the table with giant glee. Dot is right! You gome at mine house at 8 oclock to der party.A Blackjack BargainerOHenry_The most disreputable thing in Yancey Gorees law office was Goree himself, sprawled in his creakv old arm- chair. The rickety little office, built of red brick
52、 in the tepid shade. Trade was not. It was so still that Goree, reclining in his chair, distinctly heard the clicking of the chips in the grand-jury room, where the court- house gang was playing poker. From the open back door of the office a well-worn path meandered across the grassy lot to the cour
53、t-house. The treading out of that path had cost Goree all he ever had - first inheritance of a few thousand dollars, next the old family home, and, latterly the last shreds of his self-respect and manhood. The gang had cleaned him out. The broken gambler had turned drunkard and parasite; he had live
54、d to see this day come when the men who had stripped him denied him a seat at the game. His word was no longer to be taken. The daily bouts at cards had arranged itself accordingly, and to him was assigned the ignoble part of the onlooker. The sheriff, the county clerk, a sportive deputy, a gay atto
56、skey from a demijohn under the table, he had flung himself into the chair, staring, in a sort of maudlin apathy, out at the mountains immersed in the summer haze. The little white patch he saw away up on the side of Blackjack was Laurel, the village near which he had been born and bred. There, also,
57、 was the birthplace of the feud between the Gorees and the Coltranes. Now no direct heir of the Gorees survived except this plucked and singed bird of misfortune. To the Coltranes, also, but one male supporter was left - Colonel Abner Col- trane, a man of substance and standing, a member of the Stat
58、e Legislature, and a contemporary with Gorees father. The feud had been a typical one of the region; it had left a red record of hate, wrong and slaughter. But Yancey Goree was not thinking of feuds. His befuddled brain was hopelessly attacking the problem of the future maintenance of himself and hi
59、s favourite follies. Of late, old friends of the family had seen to it that he had whereof to eat and a place to sleep - but whiskey they would not buy for him, and he must have whiskey. His law business was extinct; no case had been intrusted to him in two years. He had been a borrower and a sponge
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