Love stories; Mystery fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Ranchers -- Fiction
’Donis Moore looked him over critically. “You want to be a gay bird and
you ride around looking like the last shad in the Hudson!” Obviously
pleased with his rôle of mentor, Donis’ dark, handsome face lighted with
his argument. “You see, bo, the people are right busy in this burg. They
can’t stop to chum with strangers. You got to get in step with
them—insist on chumming with them as you swing along. First you got to
look like what you want to be. Appertainin’ to which, I’d get me some
civilized togs if I was you—that is, if you happen to have any spare
change in them corduroys.”
“Change?” enquired Pape. “I let them keep the change. I could buy quite
a chunk of this town—a whole cold shoulder of it—without straining my
finances. I mean that and at present prices. What I haven’t got is
friends—not one among all these millions upon millions of effete folks.
I’m wondering if the run of the cards wouldn’t have been some different
B. P.”
“B. P.? How come? I ain’t no Greek studjent any more than I’m a
descendant of Anna Eva Fay.”
“Before Prohibition,” Why-Not accommodated. “But then, I wouldn’t want
the sort of friends whose innards I had to win any more than I’d want
those I could win with my outards. Clothes don’t make the man—or so the
poets say.”
“That dope’s blank verse, young fellow. Leastwise, the opposite holds in
N’Yawk. The wrong clothes unmake him.” The cop dandy straightened, with
an illustrative, downward glance over his own brass-buttoned
magnificence. “I’m giving it to you right, bo. Unless you’re a celeb,
and have earned a sort of special license to dress contrary to form,
you’d best flatter the people you wanta trot with by harnessing out as
near like ’em as possible. You been wearing that broad-brim on Broadway?
You _have_, eh? Don’t you see that they just naturally take you for a
steerer—likely think you’re wanting to sell ’em stock in some gilt mine?
Not meaning to hurt your feelings, I’ll say that the piebald you’re
riding is the only O. K. thing about you. Happens to be a fawncy of our
_au fait_ cits. to ride broncs this spring. Seeing you’re so careless
about your cash, you’d best throw some into the talons of a tailor and a
hatter and a near-silk-shirt grafter. Then, after you’ve got yourself
looking something like the gay guy you say you wanta be, begin to act
like him. _Do_ something, if you get me, to make ’em notice you.”
They parted at the “Remember the Maine” monument, the official mentor’s
argument duly paid for in thanks, and a “good-luck” hope exchanged.
What could he do to make New York notice him?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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