ver forty dollars a month. Don't run down your job, Aunt
Liberty; you're all right, all right."

XX

THE GREATER CONEY

"Next Sunday," said Dennis Carnahan, "I'll be after going down to see
the new Coney Island that's risen like a phoenix bird from the ashes
of the old resort. I'm going with Norah Flynn, and we'll fall victims
to all the dry goods deceptions, from the red-flannel eruption of
Mount Vesuvius to the pink silk ribbons on the race-suicide problems
in the incubator kiosk.

"Was I there before? I was. I was there last Tuesday. Did I see the
sights? I did not.

"Last Monday I amalgamated myself with the Bricklayers' Union, and in
accordance with the rules I was ordered to quit work the same day on
account of a sympathy strike with the Lady Salmon Canners' Lodge No.2,
of Tacoma, Washington.

"'Twas disturbed I was in mind and proclivities by losing me job,
bein' already harassed in me soul on account of havin' quarrelled
with Norah Flynn a week before by reason of hard words spoken at the
Dairymen and Street-Sprinkler Drivers' semi-annual ball, caused by
jealousy and prickly heat and that divil, Andy Coghlin.

"So, I says, it will be Coney for Tuesday; and if the chutes and the
short change and the green-corn silk between the teeth don't create
diversions and get me feeling better, then I don't know at all.

"Ye will have heard that Coney has received moral reconstruction. The
old Bowery, where they used to take your tintype by force and give ye
knockout drops before having your palm read, is now called the Wall
Street of the island. The wienerwurst stands are required by law to
keep a news ticker in 'em; and the doughnuts are examined every four
years by a retired steamboat inspector. The nigger man's head that
was used by the old patrons to throw baseballs at is now illegal;
and, by order of the Police Commissioner the image of a man drivin'
an automobile has been substituted. I hear that the old immoral
amusements have been suppressed. People who used to go down from New
York to sit in the sand and dabble in the surf now give up their
quarters to squeeze through turnstiles and see imitations of city
fires and floods painted on canvas. The reprehensible and degradin'
resorts that disgraced old Coney are said to be wiped out. The
wipin'-out process consists of raisin' the price from 10 cents to 25
cents, and hirin' a blonde named Maudie to sell tickets instead of
Micky, the Bowery Bite. That'