ing to set about scouring
the town for them). Every time we pass through the Atlantic Avenue
maelstrom, which is twelve times a week, we see, as plain as print,
the beginning of two magazine tales.

One begins as the passengers are streaming through the gate toward
the 5:27 train. There is a very beautiful damsel who always sits on
the left-hand side of the next to last car, by an open window. On
her plump and comely white hand, which holds the latest issue of a
motion picture magazine, is a sparkling diamond ring. Suddenly all
the lights in the train go out. Through the open window comes a
brutal grasp which wrenches the bauble from her finger. There are
screams, etc., etc. When the lights go on again, of course there is
no sign of the criminal. Five minutes later, Mr. Geoffrey Dartmouth,
enjoying a chocolate ice cream soda in the little soft-drink alcove
at the corner of the station, is astonished to find a gold ring, the
stone missing, at the bottom of his paper soda container.

The second story begins on the Atlantic Avenue platform of the
Lexington Avenue subway. It is 9 A.M., and a crowded train is
pulling out. Just before the train leaves a young man steps off one
of the cars, leaving behind him (though not at once noticed) a
rattan suitcase. This young man disappears in the usual fashion,
viz., by mingling with the crowd. When the train gets to the
end of the run the unclaimed suitcase is opened, and found to
contain--_continued on page_ 186.

* * * * *

Every now and then we take a stroll up Irving Place. It is changing
slowly, but it still has much of the flavour that Arthur Maurice had
in mind when he christened It "the heart of O. Henry land." Number
55, the solid, bleached brownstone house where O. Henry once lived,
is still there: it seems to be some sort of ecclesiastical
rendezvous, if one may judge by the letters C.H.A. on the screen and
the pointed carving of the doorway. Number 53, next door, always
interests us greatly: the windows give a glimpse of the most
extraordinary number of cages of canaries.

The old German theatre seems to have changed its language: the
boards speak now in Yiddish. The chiropractor and psycho-analyst has
invaded the Place, as may be seen by a sign on the eastern side. O.
Henry would surely have told a yarn about him if he had been there
fifteen years ago. There are still quite a number of the old brown
houses, with their iron railings a