City and town life -- Fiction; Immigrants -- Fiction; Poor -- Fiction; Short stories, American; Slums -- Fiction
Suddenly, with a small catch of breath that was audible in her throat, Miss
Slayback stepped out of that doorway, squirming her way across the tight
congestion of the sidewalk to its curb, then in and out, brushing this
elbow and that shoulder, worming her way in an absolutely supreme anxiety
to keep in view a brown derby hat bobbing right briskly along with the
crowd, a greenish-black bit of feather upright in its band.
At Broadway, Fourteenth Street cuts quite a caper, deploying out into Union
Square, an island of park, beginning to be succulent at the first false
feint of spring, rising as it were from a sea of asphalt. Across this park
Miss Slayback worked her rather frenzied way, breaking into a run when
the derby threatened to sink into the confusion of a hundred others, and
finally learning to keep its course by the faint but distinguishing fact of
a slight dent in the crown. At Broadway, some blocks before that highway
bursts into its famous flare, Mr. Batch, than whom it was no other, turned
off suddenly at right angles down into a dim pocket of side-street and into
the illuminated entrance of Ceiner's Café Hungarian. Meals at all hours.
Lunch, thirty cents. Dinner, fifty cents. Our Goulash is Famous.
New York, which expresses itself in more languages to the square block
than any other area in the world, Babylon included, loves thus to dine
linguistically, so to speak. To the Crescent Turkish Restaurant for its
Business Men's Lunch comes Fourth Avenue, whose antique-shop patois reads
across the page from right to left. Sight-seeing automobiles on mission and
commission bent allow Altoona, Iowa City, and Quincy, Illinois, fifteen
minutes' stop-in at Ching Ling-Foo's Chinatown Delmonico's. Spaghetti and
red wine have set New York racing to reserve its table d'hôtes. All except
the Latin race.
Jimmie Batch, who had first seen light, and that gaslight, in a block in
lower Manhattan which has since been given over to a milk-station for
a highly congested district, had the palate, if not the purse, of the
cosmopolite. His digestive range included _borsch_ and _chow maigne;
risotta_ and ham and.
To-night, as he turned into Café Hungarian, Miss Slayback slowed and drew
back into the overshadowing protection of an adjoining office-building. She
was breathing hard, and her little face, somehow smaller from chill, was
nevertheless a high pink at the cheek-bones.
The wind swept around the corner, jerking her hat, and her hand flew up to
it. There was a fair stream of passers-by even here, and occasionally
one turned for a backward glance at her standing there so frankly
indeterminate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account