rsified. Leisurely and
with something of an air I strolled along with my heart expanding at
the thought that I was a citizen of great Gotham, a sharer in its
magnificence and pleasures, a partaker in its glory and prestige.

I turned to cross the street. I heard something buzz like a bee, and
then I took a long, pleasant ride with Santos-Dumont.

When I opened my eyes I remembered a smell of gasoline, and I said
aloud: "Hasn't it passed yet?"

A hospital nurse laid a hand that was not particularly soft upon my brow
that was not at all fevered. A young doctor came along, grinned, and
handed me a morning newspaper.

"Want to see how it happened?" he asked cheerily. I read the article.
Its headlines began where I heard the buzzing leave off the night
before. It closed with these lines:

"--Bellevue Hospital, where it was said that his injuries were not
serious. He appeared to be a typical Man About Town."

THE COP AND THE ANTHEM

On his bench in Madison Square Soapy moved uneasily. When wild geese
honk high of nights, and when women without sealskin coats grow kind
to their husbands, and when Soapy moves uneasily on his bench in the
park, you may know that winter is near at hand.

A dead leaf fell in Soapy's lap. That was Jack Frost's card. Jack is
kind to the regular denizens of Madison Square, and gives fair warning
of his annual call. At the corners of four streets he hands his
pasteboard to the North Wind, footman of the mansion of All Outdoors,
so that the inhabitants thereof may make ready.

Soapy's mind became cognisant of the fact that the time had come for
him to resolve himself into a singular Committee of Ways and Means to
provide against the coming rigour. And therefore he moved uneasily
on his bench.

The hibernatorial ambitions of Soapy were not of the highest. In them
there were no considerations of Mediterranean cruises, of soporific
Southern skies drifting in the Vesuvian Bay. Three months on the Island
was what his soul craved. Three months of assured board and bed and
congenial company, safe from Boreas and bluecoats, seemed to Soapy the
essence of things desirable.

For years the hospitable Blackwell's had been his winter quarters. Just
as his more fortunate fellow New Yorkers had bought their tickets to
Palm Beach and the Riviera each winter, so Soapy had made his humble
arrangements for his annual hegira to the Island. And now the time
was come. On the previous night three Sabbat