Peter: A Novel of Which He is Not the HeroSmith, Francis Hopkinson
General
Peter: A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero
Smith, Francis Hopkinson
Bank tellers -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Wall Street (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction
On these occasions Mrs. McGuffey would take the lace cover off Miss
Felicia's bureau, as a matter of precaution, provided that lady was
away and the room available, and roll in a big tub for the young
gentleman--“who do be washin' hisself all the time and he that sloppy
that I'm afeared everything will be spi'lt for the mistress,” and Jack
would slip out of his working clothes (he would often come away in his
flannel shirt and loose tie, especially when he was late in paying off)
and shed his heavy boots with the red clay of Jersey still clinging to
their soles, and get into his white linen and black clothes and dress
shoes, and then the two chums would lock arms and saunter up Fifth
Avenue to dine either at one of Peter's clubs or at some house where
he and that “handsome young ward of yours, Mr. Grayson--do bring him
again,” were so welcome.
If Miss Felicia was in town and her room in use, there was never any
change in the programme, Mrs. McGuffey rising to the emergency and
discovering another and somewhat larger apartment in the next house
but two--“for one of the finest gintlemen ye ever saw and that quiet,”
etc.--into which Jack would move and which the good woman would insist
on taking full charge of herself.
It was on one of these blessed and always welcome nights, after the
two had been dining at “a little crack in the wall,” as Peter called a
near-by Italian restaurant, that he and Jack stopped to speak to Isaac
Cohen whom they found closing his shop for the night. Cohen invited
them in and Jack, after following the little tailor through the
deserted shop--all the work people had left--found himself, to his great
surprise, in a small room at the rear, which Isaac opened with a key
taken from his vest pocket, and which even in the dim light of a single
gas jet had more the appearance of the den of a scholar, or the workshop
of a scientist, than the private office of a fashioner of clothes.
Peter only stayed a moment--long enough to borrow the second volume of
one of Isaac's books, but the quaint interior and what it contained
made a great impression on Jack,--so much so that when the two had
said good-night and mounted the stairs to Peter's rooms, it was with
increased interest that the boy listened to the old fellow who stopped
on every landing to tell him some incident connected with the little
tailor and his life: How after his wife's death some years before, and
his only daughter's marriage--“and a great affair it was, my boy, I was
there and know,”--Cohen had moved down to his shop and fitted up the
back room for a little shelter of his own, where he had lived with his
books and his personal belongings and where he had met the queerest
looking people--with big heads and bushy beards--foreigners, some of
them--speaking all kinds of languages, as well as many highly educated
men in town.
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.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account