anon.

As I say, the boys was all more cheerful and contemptuous about New
York by this time. Ben had spent another day asking casual parties if
they was born in New York and having no more luck than a rabbit, but it
seemed like he'd got hardened to these disappointments. He said he might
leave his own self to a museum in due time, so future generations would
know at least what the male New Yorker looked like. As for the female,
he said any of these blondes along Broadway could be made to look near
enough like his mate by a skilled taxidermist. Jeff Tuttle here says
that they wasn't all blondes because he'd seen a certain brunette that
afternoon right in this palm grill that was certainly worth preserving
for all eternity in the grandest museum on earth--which showed that Jeff
had chirked up a lot since landing in town. Ben said he had used the
term "blonde" merely to designate a species and they let it go at that.

Lon Price then said he'd been talking a little himself to people he met
in different places and they might not be born New Yorkers but they
certainly didn't know anything beyond the city limits. At this he looks
around at the crowded tables in this palm grill and says very bitterly
that he'll give any of us fifty to one they ain't a person in the place
that ever so much as even heard of Price's Addition to Red Gap. And so
the talk went for a little, with Jake Berger ever and again crooning to
the waiter for another round of stingers. I'd had two, so I stayed out
on the last round. I told Jake I enjoyed his hospitality but two would
be all I could think under till they learned to leave the dash of
chloroform out of mine. Jake just looked kindly at me. He's as chatty as
Mount McKinley.

But I was glad to see the boys more cheerful, so I said I'd get my
lumpiest jewels out of the safe and put a maid and hairdresser to work
on me so I'd be a credit to 'em at dinner and then we'd spend a jolly
evening at some show. Jeff said he'd also doll up in his dress suit and
get shaved and manicured and everything, so he'd look like one in my own
walk of life. Ben was already dressed for evening. He had on a totally
new suit of large black and white checks looking like a hotel floor from
a little distance, bound with braid of a quiet brown, and with a vest of
wide stripes in green and mustard colour. It was a suit that the
automobile law in some states would have compelled him to put dimmers
on; it made him look egregiou