oanut palms wavin' over West Thirty-fourth Street. As our
taxis bumped us along, we dodged between coffee-colored heaps of slush
that had once been snow, and overhead all that waved in the breeze was
dingy blankets hung out on the fire-escapes. Also we finds Broadway
ripped up in new spots, with the sewer pipes exposed jaunty.

But somehow them things are what you expect. And you feel that, after
all, there's only one reg'lar place on the map--here, where you can
either pay a nickel for a hot-dog breakfast off a pushcart, or blow in
ninety cents for a pair of yesterday's eggs in a Fifth Avenue grill:
where you can see lovely lady plutesses roll by in their heliotrope
limousines, or watch little Rosie Chianti sail down the asphalt on one
roller skate.

Uh-huh! It's a great place to get back to, take it from me. Specially
when you hit it like I did, a two-way winner with a full-sized portion
of pirate loot, and Vee wearin' a ring of mine.

And maybe I didn't enjoy driftin' into the Corrugated general offices,
with everybody, from fair-haired Vincent up to Mr. Robert, givin' me
the glad hail. Some different, eh, from the first time I struck there,
'way back in the early days? I was one of a bunch then, trailin' a
want ad; and when Piddie had us lined up, it looked like I'd be only an
"also ran" until Old Hickory pads past, discovered my pink thatch, and
has me signed on as office boy.

Different! Why, inside of two minutes I begun to believe I was
somebody. Vincent starts it when he swings the brass gate wide, just
as I used to do for bank presidents.

"Good morning, sir," says he. "Glad to see you back, sir."

"Vincent," says I, "there's two of us, then; only I'm glad all over."

I hadn't counted on that row of lady typists, either. Honest, I never
faced such a battery of friendly smiles in all my more or less cheerful
career. Even Miss Muggs, who wears a business face that would have a
head undertaker lookin' frivolous, loosens up her mouth corners for a
second; while as for some of the other self-startin' queens--well, they
had me rosy in the ears, all right. I hurries past to where Mr. Piddie
is tryin' to make his ingrowin' dignity let loose its grip for a minute.

"Ah!" says he. "Back from the sunny South, eh? And how did you find
Florida?"

"Easy," says I. "We looked it up on the map."

"No, no," says Piddie; "I mean, how was the weather down there?"

"No weather at all," says I. "They ju