The Voice of the City: Further Stories of the Four MillionHenry, O.
Philosophy
The Voice of the City: Further Stories of the Four Million
Henry, O.
New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories
Mr. Binkley was the gay boy of the boarding-house. He was forty-nine,
and owned a fishstall in a downtown market. But after six o'clock he
wore an evening suit and whooped things up connected with the beaux
arts. The young men said he was an "Indian." He was supposed to be
an accomplished habitué of the inner circles of Bohemia. It was no
secret that he had once loaned $10 to a young man who had had a
drawing printed in _Puck_. Often has one thus obtained his entrée
into the charmed circle, while the other obtained both his entrée and
roast.
The other boarders enviously regarded Medora as she left at Mr.
Binkley's side at nine o'clock. She was as sweet as a cluster of
dried autumn grasses in her pale blue--oh--er--that very thin
stuff--in her pale blue Comstockized silk waist and box-pleated voile
skirt, with a soft pink glow on her thin cheeks and the tiniest bit
of rouge powder on her face, with her handkerchief and room key in
her brown walrus, pebble-grain hand-bag.
And Mr. Binkley looked imposing and dashing with his red face and
gray mustache, and his tight dress coat, that made the back of his
neck roll up just like a successful novelist's.
They drove in a cab to the Café Terence, just off the most glittering
part of Broadway, which, as every one knows, is one of the most
popular and widely patronized, jealously exclusive Bohemian resorts
in the city.
Down between the rows of little tables tripped Medora, of the Green
Mountains, after her escort. Thrice in a lifetime may woman walk upon
clouds--once when she trippeth to the altar, once when she first
enters Bohemian halls, the last when she marches back across her
first garden with the dead hen of her neighbor in her hand.
There was a table set, with three or four about it. A waiter buzzed
around it like a bee, and silver and glass shone upon it. And,
preliminary to the meal, as the prehistoric granite strata heralded
the protozoa, the bread of Gaul, compounded after the formula of
the recipe for the eternal hills, was there set forth to the hand
and tooth of a long-suffering city, while the gods lay beside their
nectar and home-made biscuits and smiled, and the dentists leaped for
joy in their gold-leafy dens.
The eye of Binkley fixed a young man at his table with the Bohemian
gleam, which is a compound of the look of the Basilisk, the shine of
a bubble of Würzburger, the inspiration of genius and the pleading of
a panhandler.
The young man sprang to his feet. "Hello, Bink, old boy!" he shouted.
"Don't tell me you were going to pass our table. Join us--unless
you've another crowd on hand."
"Don't mind, old chap," said Binkley, of the fish-stall. "You know
how I like to butt up against the fine arts. Mr. Vandyke--Mr.
Madder--er--Miss Martin, one of the elect also in art--er--"
The introduction went around. There were also Miss Elise and Miss
'Toinette. Perhaps they were models, for they chattered of the St.
Regis decorations and Henry James--and they did it not badly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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