Find in the text and translate into russian the sentences with the following word combinations

Find in the text and translate into Russian the sentences with the following word combinations:

a) … we do nothing personally to …

b) … they expect nothing for their effort …

c) … to take a moment to …

d) … is worth supporting …

e) … by simply saying

f) Times change …

Найдите в тексте, и переведите на русский язык предложения со следующими словосочетаниями:

 a)   Isn’t it strange that we do nothing personally to recognize the very special role our friends play in our lives? — Очень странно, что мы не делаем лично ничего, чтобы осознать какую очень важную роль играют друзья в наших жизнях?
b)  And they expect nothing for their effort — beyond perhaps a smile and a thank you. — И они не ожидают ничто за их усилия — кроме, пожалуй, улыбки и «спасибо».
c)   We decided to declare July 31 as our Friends Day — a day to take a moment to remember all the kindness our friends have done for us during the year. — Мы решили объявить 31 июля днем Друзей — день чтобы взять и вспомнить всю доброту, которую наши друзья сделали для нас в течение года.

 a)    If you also think the idea of a Friends Day is worth supporting, do it. — Если вы также думаете, что идею относительно дня Друзей стоит поддержать, сделайте это.
b)    Thank all your friends for the wonderful gift they give you by simply saying. — Поблагодарите всех ваших друзей за замечательный подарок, которым они дают вам, просто говоря.
c)    Times change and we do, too, but friendship is for always. — Времена меняются, и мы меняемся, но дружба — навсегда.

1. it frightens a foreigner;

2. any kind of a building except a skyscraper;

3. I take great interest in the West;

4. complete without that picture;

5. smiles and goes on showing us;

6. been in Europe for a month.

Speaking

VII. Answer the questions:

1. Who was Montague Silver?

2. Why did the author come to New York?

3. Why did Sliver call the people of New York “metropolitan
   hayseeds?”

4. Who was J.P. Morgan? How did he look like?

5. What was the name of the picture Mr. Morgan wanted to buy?

6. Where did Silver see the picture?

7. How much did Silver and the author pay for the picture?

8. Why wasn’t Mr. Morgan at the hotel?

VII. Comment on:

1. The title of the story.

2. The expression: “concrete
   jungle.” How does it relate to the story?

3. The proverb: if in doubt, leave
   it out.

Writing

1. Analyse the main idea of the story.

2. Make the written analysis of the text.

3. The role of hyperbole in the story.

Supplementary reading

Text 7: A Service of Love

WHEN
ONE LOVES ONES ART no service seems too hard.

That
is our premise. This story shall draw a conclusion from it, and show
at the same time that the premise is incorrect. That will be a new
thing in logic, and a feat in story-telling somewhat older than the
Great Wall of China.

Joe
Larrabee came out of the post-oak flats of the Middle West pulsing
with a genius for pictorial art. At six he drew a picture of the town
pump with a prominent citizen passing it hastily. This effort was
framed and hung in the drug store window by the side of the ear of
corn with an uneven number of rows. At twenty he left for New York
with a flowing necktie and a capital tied up somewhat closer.

Delia
Caruthers did things in six octaves so promisingly in a pine-tree
village in the South that her relatives chipped in enough in her chip
hat for her to go `North’ and `finish.’ They could not see her f -,
but that is our story.

Joe
and Delia met in an atelier where a number of art and music students
had gathered to discuss chiaroscuro, Wagner, music, Rembrandt’s works
pictures, Waldteufel, wall-paper, Chopin, and Oolong.

Joe
and Delia became enamoured one of the other or each of the other, as
you please, and in a short time were married — for (see above), when
one loves one’s Art no service seem too hard.

Mr.
and Mrs. Larrabee began housekeeping in a flat. It was a lonesome
flat — something like the A sharp way down at the left-hand end of
the keyboard. And they were happy; for they had their Art and they
had each other. And my advice to the rich young man would be — sell
all thou hast, and give it to the poor — janitor for the privilege of
living in a flat with your Art and your Delia.

Flat-dwellers
shall endorse my dictum that theirs is the only true happiness. If a
home is happy it cannot fit too close — let the dresser collapse and
become a billiard table; let the mantel turn to a rowing machine, the
escritoire to a spare bedchamber, the washstand to an upright piano;
let the four walls come together, if they will, so you and your Delia
are between. But if home be the other kind, let it be wide and long —
enter you at the Golden Gate, hang your hat on Hatteras, your cape on
Cape Horn, and go out by Labrador.

Joe
was painting in the class of the great Magister — you know his fame.
His fees are high; his lessons are light — his high-lights have
brought him renown. Delia was studying under Rosenstock you know his
repute as a disturber of the piano keys.

They
were mighty happy as long as their money lasted. So is every — but I
will not be cynical. Their aims were very clear and defined. Joe was
to become capable very soon of turning out pictures that old
gentlemen with thin side-whiskers and thick pocketbooks would sandbag
one another in his studio for the privilege of buying. Delia was to
become familiar and then contemptuous with Music, so that when she
saw the orchestra seats and boxes unsold she could have sore throat
and lobster in a private dining-room and refuse to go on the stage.

But
the best, in my opinion, was the home life in the little flat the
ardent, voluble chats after the day’s study; the cosy dinners and
fresh, light breakfasts; the interchange of ambitions — ambitions
interwoven each with the other’s or else inconsiderable — the mutual
help and inspiration; and — overlook my artlessness stuffed olives
and cheese sandwiches at 11 p.m.

But
after awhile Art flagged. It sometimes does, even if some switchman
doesn’t flag it. Everything going out and nothing coming in, as the
vulgarians say. Money was lacking to pay Mr. Magister and Herr
Rosenstock their prices. When one loves one’s Art no service seems
too hard. So, Delia said she must give music lessons to keep the
chafing dish bubbling.

For
two or three days she went out canvassing for pupils. One evening she
came home elated.

“Joe,
dear,” she said gleefully, “I’ve a pupil. And, oh, the loveliest
people! General — General A. B. Pinkney’s daughter — on Seventy-first
Street. Such a splendid house, Joe — you ought to see the front door!
Byzantine I think you would call it. And inside! Oh, Joe, I never saw
anything like it before. My pupil is his daughter Clementina. I
dearly love her already. She’s a delicate thing — dresses always in
white; and the sweetest, simplest manners! Only eighteen years old.
I’m to give three lessons a week; and, just think, Joe! $5 a lesson.
I don’t mind it a bit; for when I get two or three more pupils I can
resume my lessons with Herr Rosenstock. Now, smooth out that wrinkle
between your brows, dear, and let’s have a nice supper.”

“That’s
all right for you, Dele,’ said Joe, attacking a can of peas with a
carving knife and a hatchet, `but how about me? Do you think I’m
going to let you hustle for wages while I philander in the regions of
high art? Not by the bones of Benvenuto Cellini! I guess I can sell
papers or lay cobblestones, and bring in a dollar or two.”

Delia
came and hung about his neck.

“Joe,
dear, you are silly. You must keep on at your studies. It is not as
if I had quit my music and gone to work at something else. While I
teach I learn. I am always with my music. And we can live as happily
as millionaires on $15 a week. You mustn’t think of leaving Mr.
Magister.”

“All
right,” said Joe, reaching for the blue scalloped vegetable dish.
“But I hate for you to be giving lessons. It isn’t Art. But you’re
a trump and a dear to do it.”

“When
one loves one’s Art no service seems too hard,” said Delia.

“Magister
praised the sky in that sketch I made in the. park,” said Joe. “And
Tinkle gave me permission to hang two of them in his window. I may
sell one if the right kind of a moneyed idiot sees them.”

“I’m
sure you will,” said Delia sweetly. “And now let’s be thankful
for General Pinkney and this veal roast.”

During
all of the next week the Larrabees had an early breakfast. Joe was
enthusiastic about some morning-effect sketches he was doing in
Central Park, and Delia packed him off breakfasted, coddled, praised,
and kissed at seven o’clock. Art is an engaging mistress. It was most
times seven o’clock when he returned in the evening.

At
the end of the week Delia, sweetly proud but languid, triumphantly
tossed three five-dollar bills on the 8 by 10 (inches) centre table
of the 8 by 10 (feet) flat parlour.

“Sometimes,”
she said, a little wearily, “Clementina tries me. I’m afraid she
doesn’t practise enough, and I have to tell her the same things so
often. And then she always dresses entirely in white, and that does
get monotonous. But General Pinkney is the dearest old man! I wish
you could know him, Joe. He comes in sometimes when I am with
Clementina at the piano — he is a widower, you know — and stands
there pulling his white goatee. “And how are the semiquavers and
the demi-semiquavers progressing?” he always asks.”

“I
wish you could see the wainscoting in that drawing-room, Joe! And
those Astrakhan rug portieres. And Clementina has such a funny little
cough. I hope she is stronger than she looks. Oh, I really am getting
attached to her, she is so gentle and high bred. General Pinkney’s
brother was once Minister to Bolivia.”

And
then Joe, with the air of a Monte Cristo, drew forth a ten, a five, a
two and a one — all legal tender notes — and laid them beside Delia’s
earnings.

“Sold
that water-color of the obelisk to a man from Peoria,” he announced
overwhelmingly.

“Don’t
joke with me,” said Delia – “not from Peoria!”

“All
the way. I wish you could see him, Dele. Fat man with a woollen
muffler and a quill toothpick. He saw the sketch in Tinkle’s window
and thought it was a windmill at first. He was game, though, and
bought it anyhow. He ordered another — an oil sketch of the
Lackawanna freight depot — to take back with him. Music lessons! Oh,
I guess Art is still in it.”

“I’m
so glad you’ve kept on,” said Delia heartily. “You’re bound to
win, dear. Thirty-three dollars! We never had so much to spend
before. We’ll have oysters to-night.”

“And
filet mignon with champignons,” said Joe. “Where is the olive
fork?”

On
the next Saturday evening Joe reached home first. He spread his $18
on the parlor table and washed what seemed to be a great deal of dark
paint from his hands.

Half
an hour later l5elia arrived, her right hand tied up in a shapeless
bundle of wraps and bandages.

“How
is this?’” asked Joe after the usual greetings

Delia
laughed, but not very joyously

“Clementina,”
she explained, “insisted upon a Welsh rabbit after her lesson. She
is such a queer girl. Welsh rabbits at five in the afternoon. The
General was there. You should have seen him run for the chafing dish,
Joe, just as if there wasn’t a servant in the house. I know
Clementina isn’t in good health; she is so nervous. In serving the
rabbit she spilled a great lot of it, boiling hot, over my hand and
wrist. It hurt awfully, Joe. And the dear girl was so sorry! But
General Pinkney! — Joe, that old man nearly went distracted. He
rushed downstairs and sent somebody — they said the furnace man or
somebody in the basement — out to a drug store for some oil and
things to bind it up with. It doesn’t hurt so much now.”

“What’s
this?” asked Joe, taking the hand tenderly and pulling at some
white strands beneath the bandages.

“It’s
something soft,” said Delia, “that had oil on it. Oh, Joe, did
you sell another sketch?” She had seen the money on the table.

“Did
I?” said Joe. “Just ask the man from Peoria. He got his depot
today, and he isn’t sure but he thinks he wants another parkscape and
a view on the Hudson. What time this afternoon did you burn your
hand, Dele?”

“Five
o’clock, I think,” said Dele plaintively. “The iron — I mean the
rabbit came off the fire about that time. You ought to have seen
General Pinkney, Joe, when — ”

“Sit
down here a moment, Dele,” said Joe. He drew her to the couch, sat
down beside her and put his arm across her shoulders.

“What
have you been doing for the .last two weeks, Dele?” he asked.

She
braved it for a moment or two with an eye full of love and
stubbornness, and murmured a phrase or two vaguely of General
Pinkney; but at length down went her head and out came the truth and
tears.

“I
couldn’t get any pupils,” she confessed. “And I couldn’t bear to
have you give up your lessons; and I got a place ironing shirts in
that big Twenty-fourth Street laundry. And I think I did very well to
make up both General Pinkney and Clementina, don’t you, Joe? And when
a girl in the laundry set down a hot iron on my hand this afternoon I
was all the way home making up that story about the Welsh rabbit.
You’re not angry are you, Joe? And if I hadn’t got the work you
mightn’t have sold your sketches to that man from Peoria.”

“He
wasn’t from Peoria,” said Joe slowly

“Well,
it doesn’t matter where he was from. How clever you are Joe — and —
” kiss me, Joe — and what made you ever suspect that I wasn’t
giving music lessons to Clementina?”

“I
didn’t,” said Joe, “until tonight. And I wouldn’t have then only
I sent up this cotton waste and oil from the engine-room this
afternoon for a girl upstairs who had her hand burned with a
smoothing-iron. I’ve been firing the engine in that laundry for the
last two weeks.”

“And
then you didn’t — ”

“My
purchaser from Peoria,” said Joe, “and General Pinkney are both
creations of the same art — but you wouldn’t call it either painting
or music.”

And
then they both laughed, and Joe began:

“When
one loves one’s Art no service seems – “

But
Delia stopped him with her hand on his lips. “No,” she said “just
“When one loves.””

Text
8: The Trimmed Lamp

OF COURSE THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO THE QUESTION. Let us look at the
other. We often hear “shop-girls” spoken of. No such persons
exist.

There are girls who work in shops. They make their living that way.
But why turn their occupation into an adjective? Let us be fair. We
do not refer to the girls who live on Fifth Avenue as
“marriage-girls.”

Lou and Nancy were chums. They came to the big city to find work
because there was not enough to eat at their homes to go around.
Nancy was nineteen; Lou was twenty. Both were pretty, active, country
girls who had no ambition to go on the stage.

The little cherub that sits up aloft guided them to a cheap and
respectable boarding-house. Both found positions and became
wage-earners. They remained chums. It is at the end of six months
that I would beg you to step forward and be introduced to them.
Meddlesome Reader: My Lady friends, Miss Nancy and Miss Lou. While
you are shaking hands please take notice –cautiously — of heir
attire. Yes, cautiously; for they are as quick to resent a stare as a
lady in a box at the horse show is.

Lou is a piece-work ironer in a hand laundry. She is clothed in a
badly-fitting purple dress, and her hat plume is four inches too
long; but her ermine muff and scarf cost $25, and its fellow beasts
will be ticketed in the windows at $7.98 before the season is over.
Her cheeks are pink, and her light blue eyes bright. Contentment
radiates from her.

Nancy you would call a shop-girl — because you have the habit. There
is no type; but a perverse generation is always seeking a type; so
this is what the type should be. She has the high-ratted pompadour,
and the exaggerated straight-front. Her skirt is shoddy, but has the
correct flare. No furs protect her against the bitter spring air, but
she wears her short broadcloth jacket as jauntily as though it were
Persian lamb! On her face and in her eyes, remorseless type-seeker,
is the typical shop-girl expression. It is a look of silent but
contemptuous revolt against cheated womanhood; of sad prophecy of the
vengeance to come. When she laughs her loudest the look is still
there. The same look can be seen in the eyes of Russian peasants; and
those of us left will see it some day on Gabriel’s face when he comes
to blow us up. It is a look that should wither and abash man; but he
has been known to smirk at it and offer flowers — with a string tied
to them.

Now lift your hat and come away, while you receive Lou’s cheery “See
you again,” and the sardonic, sweet smile of Nancy that seems,
somehow, to miss you and go fluttering like a white moth up over the
housetops to the stars.

The two waited on the corner for Dan. Dan was Lou’s steady company.
Faithful? Well, he was on hand when Mary would have had to hire a
dozen subpoena servers to find her lamb.

“Ain’t you cold, Nance?” said Lou. “Say, what a chump you are
for working in that old store for $8 a week! I made $l8.50 last week.
Of course ironing ain’t as swell work as selling lace behind a
counter, but it pays. None of us ironers make less than $10. And I
don’t know that it’s any less respectful work, either.”

“You can have it,” said Nancy, with uplifted nose. “I’ll take
my eight a week and hall bedroom. I like to be among nice things and
swell people. And look what a chance I’ve got! Why, one of our glove
girls married a Pittsburg — steel maker, or blacksmith or something —
the other day worth a million dollars. I’ll catch a swell myself some
time. I ain’t bragging on my looks or anything; but I’ll take my
chances where there’s big prizes offered. What show would a girl have
in a laundry?”

“Why, that’s where I met Dan,” said Lou, triumphantly. “He came
in for his Sunday shirt and collars and saw me at the first board,
ironing. We all try to get to work at the first board. Ella Maginnis
was sick that day, and I had her place. He said he noticed my arms
first, how round and white they was. I had my sleeves rolled up. Some
nice fellows come into laundries. You can tell ’em by their bringing
their clothes in suit cases; and turning in the door sharp and
sudden.”

“How can you wear a waist like that, Lou?” said Nancy, gazing
down at the offending article with sweet scorn in her heavy-lidded
eyes. “It shows fierce taste.”

“This waist?” cried Lou, with wide-eyed indignation. “Why, I
paid $16 for this waist. It’s worth twenty-five. A woman left it to
be laundered, and never called for it. The boss sold it to me. It’s
got yards and yards of hand embroidery on it. Better talk about that
ugly, plain thing you’ve got on.”

“This ugly, plain thing,” said Nancy, calmly, “was copied from
one that Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher was wearing. The girls say her bill
in the store last year was $12,000. I made mine, myself. It cost me
$1.50. Ten feet away you couldn’t tell it from hers.”

“Oh, well,” said Lou, good-naturedly, “if you want to starve
and put on airs, go ahead. But I’ll take my job and good wages; and
after hours give me something as fancy and attractive to wear as I am
able to buy.”

But just then Dan came — a serious young man with
a ready-made necktie, who had escaped the city’s brand of frivolity —
an electrician earning 30 dollars per week who looked upon Lou with
the sad eyes of Romeo, and thought her embroidered waist a web in
which any fly should delight to be caught.

“My friend, Mr. Owens — shake hands with Miss Danforth,” said
Lou.

“I’m mighty glad to know you, Miss Danforth,”
said Dan, with outstretched hand. “I’ve heard Lou speak of you so
often.”

“Thanks,” said Nancy, touching his fingers with the tips of her
cool ones, “I’ve heard her mention you — a few times.”

Lou giggled.

“Did you get that handshake from Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher, Nance?”
she asked.

“If I did, you can feel safe in copying it,” said Nancy.

“Oh, I couldn’t use it, at all. It’s too stylish for me. It’s
intended to set off diamond rings, that high shake is. Wait till I
get a few and then I’ll try it.”

“Learn it first,” said Nancy wisely, “and you’ll be more likely
to get the rings.”

“Now, to settle this argument,” said Dan, with his ready,
cheerful smile, “let me make a proposition. As I can’t take both of
you up to Tiffany’s and do the right thing, what do you say to a
little vaudeville? I’ve got the rickets. How about looking at stage
diamonds since we can’t shake hands with the real sparklers?”

The faithful squire took his place close to the curb; Lou next, a
little peacocky in her bright and pretty clothes; Nancy on the
inside, slender, and soberly clothed as the sparrow, but with the
true Van Alstyne Fisher walk — thus they set out for their evening’s
moderate diversion.

I do not suppose that many look upon a great department store as an
educational institution. But the one in which Nancy worked was
something like that to her. She was surrounded by beautiful things
that breathed of taste and refinement. If you live in an atmosphere
of luxury, luxury is yours whether your money pays for it, or
another’s.

The people she served were mostly women whose dress, manners, and
position in the social world were quoted as criterions. From them
Nancy began to take toll — the best from each according to her view.

From one she would copy and practice a gesture, from another an
eloquent lifting of an eyebrow, from others, a manner of walking, of
carrying a purse, of smiling, of greeting a friend, of addressing
“inferiors in station.” From her best beloved model, Mrs. Van
Alstyne Fisher, she made requisition for that excellent thing, a
soft, low voice as clear as silver and as perfect in articulation as
the notes of a thrush. Suffused in the aura of this high social
refinement and good breeding, it was impossible for her to escape a
deeper effect of it. As good habits are said to be better than good
principles, so, perhaps, good manners are better than good habits.
The teachings of your parents may not keep alive your New England
conscience; but if you sit on a straight-back chair and repeat the
words “prisms and pilgrims” forty times the devil will flee from
you. And when Nancy spoke in the Van Alstyne Fisher tones she felt
the thrill of _noblesse oblige_ to her very bones.

There was another source of learning in the great departmental
school. Whenever you see three or four shop-girls gather in a bunch
and jingle their wire bracelets as an accompaniment to apparently
frivolous conversation, do not think that they are there for the
purpose of criticizing the way Ethel does her back hair. The meeting
may lack the dignity of the deliberative bodies of man; but it has
all the importance of the occasion on which Eve and her first
daughter first put their heads together to make Adam understand his
proper place in the household. It is Woman’s Conference for Common
Defense and Exchange of Strategical Theories of Attack and Repulse
upon and against the World, which is a Stage, and Man, its Audience
who Persists in Throwing Bouquets Thereupon. Woman, the most helpless
of the young of any animal — with the fawn’s grace but without its
fleetness; with the bird’s beauty but without its power of flight;
with the honey-bee’s burden of sweetness but without its — Oh, let’s
drop that simile — some of us may have been stung.

During this council of war they pass weapons one to another, and
exchange stratagems that each has devised and formulated out of the
tactics of life. “I says to ‘im,” says Sadie, “ain’t you the
fresh thing! Who do you suppose I am, to be addressing such a remark
to me? And what do you think he says back to me?”

The heads, brown, black, flaxen, red, and yellow bob together; the
answer is given; and the parry to the thrust is decided upon, to be
used by each thereafter in passages-at-arms with the common enemy,
man.

Thus Nancy learned the art of defense; and to women successful
defense means victory.

The curriculum of a department store is a wide one. Perhaps no other
college could have fitted her as well for her life’s ambition — the
drawing of a matrimonial prize.

Her station in the store was a favored one. The music room was near
enough for her to hear and become familiar with the works of the best
composers — at least to acquire the familiarity that passed for
appreciation in the social world in which she was vaguely trying to
set a tentative and aspiring foot. She absorbed the educating
influence of art wares, of costly and dainty fabrics, of adornments
that are almost culture to women.

The other girls soon became aware of Nancy’s ambition. “Here comes
your millionaire, Nancy,” they would call to her whenever any man
who looked the role approached her counter. It got to be a habit of
men, who were hanging about while their women folk were shopping, to
stroll over to the handkerchief counter and dawdle over the cambric
squares. Nancy’s imitation high-bred air and genuine dainty beauty
was what attracted. Many men thus came to display their graces before
her. Some of them may have been millionaires; others were certainly
no more than their sedulous apes. Nancy learned to discriminate.
There was a window at the end of the handkerchief counter; and she
could see the rows of vehicles waiting for the shoppers in the street
below. She looked and perceived that automobiles differ as well as do
their owners.

Once a fascinating gentleman bought four dozen handkerchiefs, and
wooed her across the counter with a King Cophetua air. When he had
gone one of the girls said:

“What’s wrong, Nance, that you didn’t warm up to that fellow. He
looks the swell article, all right, to me.”

“Him?” said Nancy, with her coolest, sweetest, most impersonal,
Van Alstyne Fisher smile; “not for mine. I saw him drive up
outside. A 12 H. P. machine and an Irish chauffeur! And you saw what
kind of handkerchiefs he bought — silk! And he’s got dactylis on him.
Give me the real thing or nothing, if you please.”

Two of the most “refined” women in the store — a forelady and a
cashier — had a few “swell gentlemen friends” with whom they now
and then dined. Once they included Nancy in an invitation. The dinner
took place in a spectacular cafe whose tables are engaged for New
Year’s eve a year in advance. There were two “gentlemen friends”
— one without any hair on his head — high living ungrew it; and we
can prove it — the other a young man whose worth and sophistication
he impressed upon you in two convincing ways — he swore that all the
wine was corked; and he wore diamond cuff buttons. This young man
perceived irresistible excellencies in Nancy. His taste ran to
shop-girls; and here was one that added the voice and manners of his
high social world to the franker charms of her own caste. So, on the
following day, he appeared in the store and made her a serious
proposal of marriage over a box of hem-stitched, grass-bleached Irish
linens. Nancy declined. A brown pompadour ten feet away had been
using her eyes and ears. When the rejected suitor had gone she heaped
carboys of upbraidings and horror upon Nancy’s head.

“What a terrible little fool you are! That fellow’s a millionaire —
he’s a nephew of old Van Skittles himself. And he was talking on the
level, too. Have you gone crazy, Nance?”

“Have I?” said Nancy. “I didn’t take him, did I? He isn’t a
millionaire so hard that you could notice it, anyhow. His family only
allows him $20,000 a year to spend. The bald-headed fellow was guying
him about it the other night at supper.”

The brown pompadour came nearer and narrowed her eyes.

“Say, what do you want?” she inquired, in a voice hoarse for lack
of chewing-gum. “Ain’t that enough for you? Do you want to be a
Mormon, and marry Rockefeller and Gladstone Dowie and the King of
Spain and the whole bunch? Ain’t $20,000 a year good enough for you?”

Nancy flushed a little under the level gaze of the black, shallow
eyes.

“It wasn’t altogether the money, Carrie,” she explained. “His
friend caught him in a rank lie the other night at dinner. It was
about some girl he said he hadn’t been to the theater with. Well, I
can’t stand a liar. Put everything together — I don’t like him; and
that settles it. When I sell out it’s not going to be on any bargain
day. I’ve got to have something that sits up in a chair like a man,
anyhow. Yes, I’m looking out for a catch; but it’s got to be able to
do something more than make a noise like a toy bank.”

“The physiopathic ward for yours!” said the brown pompadour,
walking away.

These high ideas, if not ideals — Nancy continued to cultivate on $8
per week. She bivouacked on the trail of the great unknown “catch,”
eating her dry bread and tightening her belt day by day. On her face
was the faint, soldierly, sweet, grim smile of the preordained
man-hunter. The store was her forest; and many times she raised her
rifle at game that seemed broad-antlered and big; but always some
deep unerring instinct- perhaps of the huntress, perhaps of the
woman—made her hold her fire and take up the trail again.

Lou flourished in the laundry. Out of her $18.50 per week she paid $6
for her room and board. The rest went mainly for clothes. Her
opportunities for bettering her taste and manners were few compared
with Nancy’s. In the steaming laundry there was nothing but work,
work and her thoughts of the evening pleasures to come. Many costly
and showy fabrics passed under her iron; and it may be that her
growing fondness for dress was thus transmitted to her through the
conducting metal.

When the day’s work was over Dan awaited her outside, her faithful
shadow in whatever light she stood.

Sometimes he cast an honest and troubled glance at Lou’s clothes that
increased in conspicuity rather than in style; but this was no
disloyalty; he deprecated the attention they called to her in the
streets.

And Lou was no less faithful to her chum. There was a law that Nancy
should go with them on whatsoever outings they might take. Dan bore
the extra burden heartily and in good cheer. It might be said that
Lou furnished the color, Nancy the tone, and Dan the weight of the
distraction-seeking trio. The escort, in his neat but obviously
ready-made suit, his ready-made tie and unfailing, genial, ready-made
wit never startled or clashed. He was of that good kind that you are
likely to forget while they are present, but remember distinctly
after they are gone.

To Nancy’s superior taste the flavor of these ready-made pleasures
was sometimes a little bitter: but she was young; and youth is a
gourmand, when it cannot be a gourmet.

“Dan is always wanting me to marry him right away,” Lou told her
once. “But why should I? I’m independent. I can do as I please with
the money I earn; and he never would agree for me to keep on working
afterward. And say, Nance, what do you want to stick to that old
store for, and half starve and half dress yourself? I could get you a
place in the laundry right now if you’d come. It seems to me that you
could afford to be a little less stuck-up if you could make a good
deal more money.”

“I don’t think I’m stuck-up, Lou,” said Nancy,”»but I’d
rather live on half rations and stay where I am. I suppose I’ve got
the habit. It’s the chance that I want. I don’t expect to be always
behind a counter. I’m learning something new every day. I’m right up
against refined and rich people all the time — even if I do only wait
on them; and I’m not missing any pointers that I see passing around.”

“Caught your millionaire yet?” asked Lou with her teasing laugh.

“I haven’t selected one yet,” answered Nancy. “I’ve been
looking them over.”

“Goodness! the idea of picking over ’em! Don’t you ever let one get
by you Nance — even if he’s a few dollars shy. But of course you’re
joking — millionaires don’t think about working girls like us.”

“It might be better for them if they did,” said Nancy, with cool
wisdom. “Some of us could teach them how to take care of their
money.”

“If one was to speak to me,” laughed Lou, “I know I’d have a
duck-fit.”

“That’s because you don’t know any. The only difference between
swells and other people is you have to watch ’em closer. Don’t you
think that red silk lining is just a little bit too bright for that
coat, Lou?”

Lou looked at the plain, dull olive jacket of her friend.

“Well, no I don’t — but it may seem so beside that faded-looking
thing you’ve got on.”

“This jacket,” said Nancy, complacently, “has exactly the cut
and fit of one that Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher was wearing the other
day. The material cost me $3.98. I suppose hers cost about $100
more.”

“Oh, well,” said Lou lightly, “it don’t strike me as
millionaire bait. Shouldn’t wonder if I catch one before you do,
anyway.”

Truly it would have taken a philosopher to decide upon the values of
the theories held by the two friends. Lou, lacking that certain pride
and fastidiousness that keeps stores and desks filled with girls
working for the barest living, thumped away gaily with her iron in
the noisy and stifling laundry. Her wages supported her even beyond
the point of comfort; so that her dress profited until sometimes she
cast a sidelong glance of impatience at the neat but inelegant
apparel of Dan — Dan the constant, the immutable, the undeviating.

As for Nancy, her case was one of tens of thousands. Silk and jewels
and laces and ornaments and the perfume and music of the fine world
of good-breeding and taste — these were made for woman; they are her
equitable portion. Let her keep near them if they are a part of life
to her, and if she will. She is no traitor to herself, as Esau was;
for she keeps he birthright and the pottage she earns is often very
scant.

In this atmosphere Nancy belonged; and she throve in it and ate her
frugal meals and schemed over her cheap dresses with a determined and
contented mind. She already knew woman; and she was studying man, the
animal, both as to his habits and eligibility. Some day she would
bring down the game that she wanted; but she promised herself it
would be what seemed to her the biggest and the best, and nothing
smaller.

Thus she kept her lamp trimmed and burning to receive the bridegroom
when he should come.

But, another lesson she learned, perhaps unconsciously. Her standard
of values began to shift and change. Sometimes the dollar-mark grew
blurred in her mind’s eye, and shaped itself into letters that
spelled such words as “truth” and “honor” and now and then
just “kindness.” Let us make a likeness of one who hunts the
moose or elk in some mighty wood. He sees a little dell, mossy and
embowered, where a rill trickles, babbling to him of rest and
comfort. At these times the spear of Nimrod himself grows blunt.

So, Nancy wondered sometimes if Persian lamb was always quoted at its
market value by the hearts that it covered.

One Thursday evening Nancy left the store and turned across Sixth
Avenue westward to the laundry. She was expected to go with Lou and
Dan to a musical comedy.

Dan was just coming out of the laundry when she arrived. There was a
queer, strained look on his face.

“I thought I would drop around to see if they had heard from her,”
he said.

“Heard from who?” asked Nancy. “Isn’t Lou there?”

“I thought you knew,” said Dan. “She hasn’t been here or at the
house where she lived since Monday. She moved all her things from
there. She told one of the girls in the laundry she might be going to
Europe.”

“Hasn’t anybody seen her anywhere?” asked Nancy.

Dan looked at her with his jaws set grimly, and a steely gleam in his
steady gray eyes.

“They told me in the laundry,” he said, harshly, “that they saw
her pass yesterday — in an automobile. With one of the millionaires,
I suppose, that you and Lou were forever busying your brains about.”

For the first time Nancy quailed before a man. She laid her hand that
trembled slightly on Dan’s sleeve.

“You’ve no right to say such a thing to me, Dan — as if I had
anything to do with it!”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” said Dan, softening. He fumbled in
his vest pocket.

“I’ve got the tickets for the show tonight,” he said, with a
gallant show of lightness. “If you — ”

Nancy admired pluck whenever she saw it.

“I’ll go with you, Dan,” she said.

Three months went by before Nancy saw Lou again.

At twilight one evening the shop-girl was hurrying home along the
border of a little quiet park. She heard her name called, and wheeled
about in time to catch Lou rushing into her arms.

After the first embrace they drew their heads back as serpents do,
ready to attack or to charm, with a thousand questions trembling on
their swift tongues. And then Nancy noticed that prosperity had
descended upon Lou, manifesting itself in costly furs, flashing gems,
and creations of the tailors’ art.

“You little fool!” cried Lou, loudly and affectionately. “I see
you are still working in that store, and as shabby as ever. And how
about that big catch you were going to make — nothing doing yet, I
suppose?”

And then Lou looked, and saw that something better than prosperity
had descended upon Nancy — something that shone brighter than gems in
her eyes and redder than a rose in her cheeks, and that danced like
electricity anxious to be loosed from the tip of her tongue.

“Yes, I’m still in the store,” said Nancy, “but I’m going to
leave it next week. I’ve made my catch — the biggest catch in the
world. You won’t mind now Lou, will you? — I’m going to be married to
Dan — to Dan! — he’s my Dan now — why, Lou!»

Around the corner of the park strolled one of those new-crop,
smooth-faced young policemen that are making the force more endurable
— at least to the eye. He saw a woman with an expensive fur coat, and
diamond-ringed hands crouching down against the iron fence of the
park sobbing turbulently, while a slender, plainly-dressed working
girl leaned close, trying to console her. But the Gibsonian cop,
being of the new order, passed on, pretending not to notice, for he
was wise enough to know that these matters are beyond help so far as
the power he represents is concerned, though he rap the pavement with
his nightstick till the sound goes up to the furthermost stars.

Text 9: While the Auto Waits

From THE VOICE OF THE CITY

Promptly at the beginning of twilight, came again to that quiet
corner of that quiet, small park the girl in gray. She sat upon a
bench and read a book, for there was yet to come a half-hour in which
print could be accomplished.

To repeat: Her dress was gray, and plain enough to mask its
impeccancy of style and fit. A large- meshed veil imprisoned her
turban hat and a face that shone through it with a calm and
unconscious beauty. She had come there at the same hour on the day
previous, and on the day before that; and there was one who knew it.

The young man who knew it hovered near, relying upon burnt sacrifices
to the great joss, Luck. His piety was rewarded, for, in turning a
page, her book slipped from her fingers and bounded from the bench a
full yard away.

The young man pounced upon it with instant avidity, returning it to
its owner with that air that seems to flourish in parks and public
places — a compound of gallantry and hope, tempered with respect for
the policeman on the beat. In a pleasant voice, be risked an
inconsequent remark upon the weather that introductory topic
responsible for so much of the world’s unhappiness-and stood poised
for a moment, awaiting his fate.

The girl looked him over leisurely; at his ordinary, neat dress and
his features distinguished by nothing particular in the way of
expression.

“You may sit down, if you like,” she said, in
a full, deliberate contralto. “Really, I would like to have you do
so. The light is too bad for reading. I would prefer to talk.”

The vassal of Luck slid upon the seat by her side with complaisance.

“Do you know,” be said, speaking the formula
with which park chairmen open their meetings, “that you are quite
the stunningest girl I have seen in a long time? I had my eye on you
yesterday. Didn’t know somebody was bowled over by those pretty lamps
of yours, did you, honeysuckle?”

“Whoever you are,” said the girl, in icy
tones, “you must remember that I am a lady. I will excuse the
remark you have just made because the mistake was, doubtless, not an
unnatural one — in your circle. I asked you to sit down; if the
invitation must constitute me your honeysuckle, consider it
withdrawn.”

“I earnestly beg your pardon,” pleaded the
young ran. His expression of satisfaction had changed to one of
penitence and humility. “It was my fault, you know — I mean, there
are girls in parks, you know — that is, of course, you don’t know,
but — ”

“Abandon the subject, if you please. Of course
I know. Now, tell me about these people passing and crowding, each
way, along these paths. Where are they going? Why do they hurry so?
Are they happy?”

The young man had promptly abandoned his air of coquetry. His cue
was now for a waiting part; he could not guess the role be would be
expected to play.

“It is interesting to watch them,” he replied,
postulating her mood. “It is the wonderful drama of life. Some
are going to supper and some to — er — other places. One wonders
what their histories are.”

“I do not,” said the girl; “I am not so
inquisitive. I come here to sit because here, only, can I be tear
the great, common, throbbing heart of humanity. My part in life is
cast where its beats are never felt. Can you surmise why I spoke to
you, Mr. — ?”

“Parkenstacker,” supplied the young man. Then
be looked eager and hopeful.

“No,” said the girl, holding up a slender
finger, and smiling slightly. “You would recognize it immediately.
It is impossible to keep one’s name out of print. Or even one’s
portrait. This veil and this hat of my maid furnish me with an
incog. You should have seen the chauffeur stare at it when he
thought I did not see. Candidly, there are five or six names that
belong in the holy of holies, and mine, by the accident of birth, is
one of them. I spoke to you, Mr. Stackenpot — ”

“Parkenstacker,” corrected the young man,
modestly.

“- Mr. Parkenstacker, because I wanted to talk,
for once, with a natural man — one unspoiled by the despicable gloss
of wealth and supposed social superiority. Oh! you do not know how
weary I am of it — money, money, money! And of the men who surround
me, dancing like little marionettes all cut by the same pattern. I
am sick of pleasure, of jewels, of travel, of society, of luxuries of
all kinds.”

“I always had an idea,” ventured the young man, hesitatingly,
“that money must be a pretty good thing.”

“A competence is to be desired. But when you
leave so many millions that — !” She concluded the sentence with a
gesture of despair. “It is the monotony of it” she continued,
«that palls. Drives, dinners, theatres, balls, suppers, with
the gilding of superfluous wealth over it all. Sometimes the very
tinkle of the ice in my champagne glass nearly drives me mad.”

Mr. Parkenstacker looked ingenuously interested.

“I have always liked,” he said, “to read and
hear about the ways of wealthy and fashionable folks. I suppose I am
a bit of a snob. But I like to have my information accurate. Now, I
had formed the opinion that champagne is cooled in the bottle and not
by placing ice in the glass.”

The girl gave a musical laugh of genuine amusement.

“You should know,” she explained, in an
indulgent tone, “that we of the non-useful class depend for our
amusement upon departure from precedent. Just now it is a fad to put
ice in champagne. The idea was originated by a visiting Prince of
Tartary while dining at the Waldorf. It will soon give way to some
other whim. Just as at a dinner party this week on Madison Avenue a
green kid glove was laid by the plate of each guest to be put on and
used while eating olives.”

“I see,” admitted the young man, humbly.

“These special diversions of the inner circle do
not become familiar to the common public.”

“Sometimes,” continued the girl, acknowledging
his confession of error by a slight bow, “I have thought that if I
ever should love a man it would be one of lowly station. One who is
a worker and not a drone. But, doubtless, the claims of caste and
wealth will prove stronger than my inclination. Just now I am
besieged by two. One is a Grand Duke of a German principality. I
think he has, or has bad, a wife, somewhere, driven mad by his
intemperance and cruelty. The other is an English Marquis, so cold
and mercenary that I even prefer the diabolism of the Duke. What is
it that impels me to tell you these things, Mr. Packenstacker?”

“Parkenstacker,” breathed the young man.
“Indeed, you cannot know how much I appreciate your confidences.”

The girl contemplated him with the calm, impersonal regard that
befitted the difference in their stations.

“What is your line of business, Mr.
Parkenstacker?” she asked.

“A very humble one. But I hope to rise in the
world. Were you really in earnest when you said that you could love
a man of lowly position?”

“Indeed I was. But I said ‘might.’ There is the
Grand Duke and the Marquis, you know. Yes; no calling could be too
humble were the man what I would wish him to be.”

“I work,” declared Mr. Parkenstacker, “in a restaurant.”

The girl shrank slightly.

“Not as a waiter?” she said, a little
imploringly. “Labor is noble, but personal attendance, you know —
valets and — ”

“I am not a waiter. I am cashier in” — on the
street they faced that bounded the opposite side of the park was the
brilliant electric sign “RESTAURANT” – “I am cashier in that
restaurant you am there.”

The girl consulted a tiny watch set in a bracelet of rich design upon
her left wrist, and rose, hurriedly. She thrust her book into a
glittering reticule suspended from her waist, for which, however, the
book was too large.

“Why are you not at work?” she asked.

“I am on the night turn,” said the young man;
it is yet an hour before my period begins. “May I not hope to see
you again?”

“I do not know. Perhaps — but the whim may not
seize me again. I must go quickly now. There is a dinner, and a box
at the play — and, oh! the same old round. Perhaps you noticed an
automobile at the upper corner of the park as you came. One with a
white body.”

“And red running gear?” asked the young man,
knitting his brows reflectively.

“Yes. I always come in that. Pierre waits for
me there. He supposes me to be shopping in the department store
across the square. Conceive of the bondage of the life wherein we
must deceive even our chauffeurs. Good-night.”

“But it is dark now,” said Mr. Parkenstacker,
“and the park is full of rude men. May I not walk — ”

“If you have the slightest regard for my
wishes,” said the girl, firmly, “you will remain at this bench
for ten minutes after I have left. I do not mean to accuse you, but
you are probably aware that autos generally bear the monogram of
their owner. Again, good-night”

Swift and stately she moved away through the dusk. The young man
watched her graceful form as she reached the pavement at the park’s
edge, and turned up along it toward the corner where stood the
automobile. Then he treacherously and unhesitatingly began to dodge
and skim among the park trees and shrubbery in a course parallel to
her route, keeping her well in sight.

When she reached the corner she turned her head to glance at the
motor car, and then passed it, continuing on across the street.
Sheltered behind a convenient standing cab, the young man followed
her movements closely with his eyes. Passing down the sidewalk of
the street opposite the park, she entered the restaurant with the
blazing sign. The place was one of those frankly glaring
establishments, all white, paint and glass, where one may dine
cheaply and conspicuously. The girl penetrated the restaurant to
some retreat at its rear, whence she quickly emerged without her bat
and veil.

The cashier’s desk was well to the front. A redhead girl at the
stool climbed down, glancing pointedly at the clock as she did so.
The girl in gray mounted in her place.

The young man thrust his hands into his pockets and walked slowly
back along the sidewalk. At the corner his foot struck a small,
paper-covered volume lying there, sending it sliding to the edge of
the turf. By its picturesque cover he recognized it as the book the
girl had been reading. He picked it up carelessly, and saw that its
title was “New Arabian Nights,” the author being of the name of
Stevenson. He dropped it again upon the grass, and lounged,
irresolute, for a minute. Then he stepped into the automobile,
reclined upon the cushions, and said two words to the chauffeur:

“Club, Henri.”

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