“Hay dere for crissake. …” a man is yelling at Gus from the curb. “Look out for de cars!”
A yelling mouth gaping under a visored cap, a green flag waving. “Godamighty I’m on the tracks.” He yanks the horse’s head round. A crash rips the wagon behind him. Cars, the gelding, a green flag, red houses whirl and crumble into blackness.
III
Dollars
All along the rails there were faces; in the portholes there were faces. Leeward a stale smell came from the tubby steamer that rode at anchor listed a little to one side with the yellow quarantine flag drooping at the foremast.
“I’d give a million dollars,” said the old man resting on his oars, “to know what they come for.”
“Just for that pop,” said the young man who sat in the stern. “Aint it the land of opportoonity?”
“One thing I do know,” said the old man. “When I was a boy it was wild Irish came in the spring with the first run of shad. … Now there aint no more shad, an them folks, Lord knows where they come from.”
“It’s the land of opportoonity.”
A leanfaced young man with steel eyes and a thin highbridged nose sat back in a swivel chair with his feet on his new mahogany-finish desk. His skin was sallow, his lips gently pouting. He wriggled in the swivel chair watching the little scratches his shoes were making on the veneer. Damn it I dont care. Then he sat up suddenly making the swivel shriek and banged on his knee with his clenched fist. “Results,” he shouted. Three months I’ve sat rubbing my tail on this swivel chair. … What’s the use of going through lawschool and being admitted to the bar if you cant find anybody to practice on? He frowned at the gold lettering through the groundglass door.
niwdlaB eroeG
waL-tA-yenrottA
Niwdlab, Welsh. He jumped to his feet. I’ve read that damn sign backwards every day for three months. I’m going crazy. I’ll go out and eat lunch.
He straightened his vest and brushed some flecks of dust off his shoes with a handkerchief, then, contracting his face into an expression of intense preoccupation, he hurried out of his office, trotted down the stairs and out onto Maiden Lane. In front of the chophouse he saw the headline on a pink extra; Japs Thrown Back From Mukden. He bought the paper and folded it under his arm as he went in through the swinging door. He took a table and pored over the bill of fare. Mustn’t be extravagant now. “Waiter you can bring me a New England boiled dinner, a slice of applepie and coffee.” The longnosed waiter wrote the order on his slip looking at it sideways with a careful frown. … That’s the lunch for a lawyer without any practice. Baldwin cleared his throat and unfolded the paper. … Ought to liven up the Russian bonds a bit. Veterans Visit President. … Another Accident on Eleventh Avenue Tracks. Milkman seriously injured. Hello, that’d make a neat little damage suit.
Augustus McNiel, 253 W. 4th Street, who drives a milkwagon for the Excelsior Dairy Co. was severely injured early this morning when a freight train backing down the New York Central tracks …
He ought to sue the railroad. By gum I ought to get hold of that man and make him sue the railroad. … Not yet recovered consciousness. … Maybe he’s dead. Then his wife can sue them all the more. … I’ll go to the hospital this very afternoon. … Get in ahead of any of these shysters. He took a determined bite of bread and chewed it vigorously. Of course not; I’ll go to the house and see if there isn’t a wife or mother or something: Forgive me Mrs. McNiel if I intrude upon your deep affliction, but I am engaged in an investigation at this moment. … Yes, retained by prominent interests. … He drank up the last of the coffee and paid the bill.
Repeating 253 W. 4th Street over and over he boarded an uptown car on Broadway. Walking west along 4th he skirted Washington Square. The trees spread branches of brittle purple into a dovecolored sky; the largewindowed houses opposite glowed very pink, nonchalant, prosperous. The very place for a lawyer with a large conservative practice to make his residence. We’ll just see about that. He crossed Sixth Avenue and followed the street into the dingy West Side, where there was a smell of stables and the sidewalks were littered with scraps of garbage and crawling children. Imagine living down here among low Irish and foreigners, the scum of the universe. At 253 there were several unmarked bells. A woman with gingham sleeves rolled up on sausageshaped arms stuck a gray mophead out the window.
“Can you tell me if Augustus McNiel lives here?”
“Him that’s up there alayin in horspital. Sure he does.”
“That’s it. And has he any relatives living here?”
“An what would you be wantin wid ’em?”
“It’s a little matter of business.”
“Go up to the top floor an you’ll foind his wife there but most likely she cant see yez. … The poor thing’s powerful wrought up about her husband, an them only eighteen months married.”
The stairs were tracked with muddy footprints and sprinkled here and there with the spilling of ashcans.
