Tin-types taken in the streets of New York : $b a series of stories and sketches portraying many singular phases of metropolitan life — John Shaqi
Tin-types taken in the streets of New York : $b a series of stories and sketches portraying many singular phases of metropolitan lifeQuigg, Lemuel Ely
General
Tin-types taken in the streets of New York : $b a series of stories and sketches portraying many singular phases of metropolitan life
Quigg, Lemuel Ely
New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
"See," he said, "dere vas der pook vich make mankind brudders. I tell
you how you help. I vas poor. I haf no money. I lif on noddings, und dem
noddings I peg. Ven I see you und you dot money gif me, I say 'Dis man
he haf soul! He shall be save.' Den I say more as dot. I say he shall
join his hand mit me. He shall print him, den million copies, send him
de vorlt ofer, in all der lankviches, to all der peoples. Dink uf dot!
You shall be great Anarchist as I. Ve go down mit fame togedder!"
[Illustration: "HE HAF NO SOUL, NO HEART, NO MIND, NO NODDINGS."]
He paused for Mr. O'Royster's reply, trembling with fanatical
excitement. The reply was somewhat slow in coming. Mr. O'Royster, when
his companion began to talk, had leaned his head on his arm and closed
his eyes. He had preserved this attitude throughout the address and was
now breathing hard.
"Vell!" said Bludoffski, impatiently.
Mr. O'Royster drew a more resonant breath, long, deep and mellow.
"He sleep!" cried Bludoffski, in scornful fury. "Der tog! He sleep ven I
tell him--"
He sprang up, ran across the room and returned with a huge
carving-knife. "I vill kill him!" he cried, and, indeed, made start to
do it. But as suddenly he checked himself, tossed the knife on the
floor, muttering, "Bah, he not fit to kill," and opened the door into
the saloon. The Anarchist meeting had ended, but several persons were
still sitting around the tables, drinking beer. He called to two of
these, and said, in a tone of almost pitiful despair:
"Take dot man home. I not know who he vas. I not know vere he lif.
Somebotty fin' oud. Look his pockets insite. Ask der boleecemans. Do any
dings, but take him avay. He haf no soul, no mind, no heart, no
noddings!"
IV.
MAGGIE.
Wrapped in contemplation and but little else, probably because his stock
of contemplation largely exceeded his stock of else, Mr. Dootleby
wandered down the Bowery. Midnight sounded out from the spire in St.
Mark's Church just as Mr. Dootleby, having come from Broadway through
Astor Place, turned about at the Cooper Union.
There was a touch of melancholy in Mr. Dootleby's expression as he
looked down the big, brilliant Bowery, glowing with the light of a
hundred electric burners and myriads of gas-jets, and seething with
unnatural activity. He stopped a moment in the shadow thrown by the
booth of a coffee and cake vender, and looked attentively into the faces
of the throngs that passed him. He seemed to be thinking hard.
[Illustration: MR. DOOTLEBY.]
In truth, it is a suggestive place, is the Bowery. Day and night are all
the same to it. It never gets up and it never goes to bed. It never
takes a holiday. It never keeps Lent. It indulges in no sentiments. It
acknowl-edges no authority that bids it remember the Sabbath Day to
keep it holy. But from year's end to year's end it bubbles, and boils,
and seethes, and frets while the daylight lasts, and in the glare of its
brighter night it plunges headlong into carousal!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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