Irish -- United States -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Runaway wives -- Fiction
“Oh, she's my Fatima,” exclaimed Ganger. “Her real name is Jane Hoggson,
and her mother does my washing, but I call her Fatima for short. She can
stop work for the day. Get down off the platform, Jane Hoggson, and talk
to this dear little girl. You see, Mr. O'Day, now that the art of the
country has gone to the devil and nobody wants my masterpieces, I have
become an Eastern painter, fresh from Cairo, where I have lived for half
a century--principally on Turkish paste and pressed figs. My specialty
at present--they are all over my walls, as you can see--is dancing-girls
in silk tights or without them, just as the tobacco shops prefer. I
also do sheiks, muffled to their eyebrows in bath towels, and with
scimitars--like that one above the mantel. And very profitable, too;
MOST profitable, my dear sir. I get twenty doldars for a real odalisk
and fifteen for a bashi-bazouk. I can do one about every other day, and
I sell one about every other month. As for Sam Dogger here--Sam, what is
your specialty? I said landscapes, Sam, when Mr. O'Day came in, but you
may have changed since we have been talking.”
The wizened old gentleman thus addressed sidled nearer. He was ten years
younger than Ganger, but his thin, bloodless hands, watery eyes, their
lids edged with red, and bald head covered by a black velvet skull-cap
made him look that much older.
“Nat talks too much, Mr. O'Day,” he piped in a high-keyed voice. “I
often tell Nat that he's got a loose hinge in his mouth, and he ought to
screw it tight or it will choke him some day when he isn't watching. He!
He!” And a wheezy laugh filled the room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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