The Pride of the Cities

by O. Henry

　　

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Said Mr. Kipling, "The cities are full of pride, challenging each toeach." Even so. New York was empty. Two hundred thousand of its people were away for thesummer. Three million eight hundred thousand remained as caretakers andto pay the bills of the absentees. But the two hundred thousand are anexpensive lot. The New Yorker sat at a roof-garden table, ingesting solace through astraw. His panama lay upon a chair. The July audience was scatteredamong vacant seats as widely as outfielders when the champion batter stepsto the plate. Vaudeville happened at intervals. The breeze was cool fromthe bay; around and above -- everywhere except on the stage -- werestars. Glimpses were to be had of waiters, always disappearing, likestartled chamois. Prudent visitors who had ordered refreshments by 'phonein the morning were now being served. The New Yorker was aware of certaindrawbacks to his comfort, but content beamed softly from his rimlesseyeglasses. His family was out of town. The drinks were warm; the balletwas suffering from lack of both tune and talcum -- but his family wouldnot return until September. Then up into the garden stumbled the man from Topaz City, Nevada. Thegloom of the solitary sightseer enwrapped him. Bereft of joy throughloneliness, he stalked with a widower's face through the halls ofpleasure. Thirst for human companionship possessed him as he panted inthe metropolitan draught. Straight to the New Yorker's table he steered. The New Yorker, disarmed and made reckless by the lawless atmosphere of aroof garden, decided upon utter abandonment of his life's traditions. Heresolved to shatter with one rash, dare-devil, impulsive, hair-brained actthe conventions that had hitherto been woven into his existence. Carryingout this radical and precipitous inspiration he nodded slightly to thestranger as he drew nearer the table. The next moment found the man from Topaz City in the list of the NewYorker's closest friends. He took a chair at the table, he gathered twoothers for his feet, he tossed his broad-brimmed hat upon a fourth, andtold his life's history to his new-found pard. The New Yorker warmed a little, as an apartment-house furnace warms whenthe strawberry season begins. A waiter who came within hail in anunguarded moment was captured and paroled on an errand to the Doctor Wileyexperimental station. The ballet was now in the midst of a musicalvagary, and danced upon the stage programmed as Bolivian peasants, clothedin some portions of its anatomy as Norwegian fisher maidens, in others asladies-in-waiting of Marie Antoinette, historically denuded in otherportions so as to represent sea nymphs, and presenting the tout ensembleof a social club of Central Park West housemaids at a fish fry. "Been in the city long?" inquired the New Yorker, getting ready the exacttip against the waiter's coming with large change from the bill. "Me?" said the man from Topaz City. "Four days. Never in Topaz City, wasyou?" "I!" said the New Yorker. "I was never farther west than Eighth Avenue.I had a brother who died on Ninth, but I met the cortege at Eighth. Therewas a bunch of violets on the hearse, and the undertaker mentioned theincident to avoid mistake. I cannot say that I am familiar with the West." "Topaz City," said the man who occupied four chairs, "is one of the finesttowns in the world." "I presume that you have seen the sights of the metropolis," said the NewYorker, "Four days is not a sufficient length of time in which to vieweven our most salient points of interest, but one can possibly form ageneral impression. Our architectural supremacy is what generally strikesvisitors to our city most forcibly. Of course you have seen our FlatironBuilding. It is considered --" "Saw it," said the man from Topaz City. "But you ought to come out ourway. It's mountainous, you know, and the ladies all wear short skirts forclimbing and --" "Excuse me," said the New Yorker, "but that isn't exactly the point. NewYork must be a wonderful revelation to a visitor from the West. Now, asto our hotels --" "Say," said the man from Topaz City, "that reminds me -- there weresixteen stage robbers shot last year within twenty miles of --" "I was speaking of hotels," said the New Yorker. "We lead Europe in thatrespect. And as far as our leisure class is concerned we are far --" "Oh, I don't know," interrupted the man from Topaz City. "There weretwelve tramps in our jail when I left home. I guess New York isn't so --" "Beg pardon, you seem to misapprehend the idea. Of course, you visitedthe Stock Exchange and Wall Street, where the --" "Oh, yes," said the man from Topaz City, as he lighted a Pennsylvaniastogie, "and I want to tell you chat we've got the finest town marshalwest of the Rockies. Bill Rainer he took in five pickpockets out of thecrowd when Red Nose Thompson laid the cornerstone of his new saloon.Topaz City don't allow --" "Have another Rhine wine and seltzer," suggested the New Yorker. "I'venever been West, as I said; but there can't be any place out there tocompare with New York. As to the claims of Chicago I --" "One man," said the Topazite -- "one man only has been murdered and robbedin Topaz City in the last three --" "Oh, I know what Chicago is," interposed the New Yorker. "Have you beenup Fifth Avenue to see the magnificent residences of our mil --" "Seen 'em all. You ought to know Reub Stegall, the assessor of Topaz.When old man Tilbury, that owns the only two-story house in town, tried toswear his taxes from $6,000 down to $450.75, Reub buckled on hisforty-five and went down to see --" "Yes, yes, but speaking of our great city -- one of its greatest featuresis our superb police department. There is no body of men in the worldthat can equal it for --" "That waiter gets around like a Langley flying machine," remarked the manfrom Topaz City, thirstily. "We've got men in our town, too, worth$400,000. There's old Bill Withers and Colonel Metcalf and --" "Have you seen Broadway at night?" asked the New Yorker, courteously."There are few streets in the world that can compare with it. When theelectrics are shining and the pavements are alive with two hurryingstreams of elegantly clothed men and beautiful women attired in thecostliest costumes that wind in and out in a close maze of expensively --" "Never knew but one case in Topaz City," said the man from the West. "JimBailey, our mayor, had his watch and chain and $235 in cash taken from hispocket while --" "That's another matter," said the New Yorker. "While you are in our cityyou should avail yourself of every opportunity to see its wonders. Ourrapid transit system --" "If you was out in Topaz," broke in the man from there, "I could show youa whole cemetery full of people that got killed accidentally. Talkingabout mangling folks up! why, when Berry Rogers turned loose that olddouble-barrelled shot-gun of his loaded 'with slugs at anybody --" "Here, waiter!" called the New Yorker. "Two more of the same. It isacknowledged by every one that our city is the centre of art, andliterature, and learning. Take, for instance, our after-dinner speakers.Where else in the country would you find such wit and eloquence as emanatefrom Depew and Ford, and --" "If you take the papers," interrupted the Westerner, "you must have readof Pete Webster's daughter. The Websters live two blocks north of thecourt-house in Topaz City. Miss Tillie Webster, she slept forty days andnights without waking up. The doctors said that --" "Pass the matches, please," said the New Yorker. "Have you observed theexpedition with which new buildings are being run up in New York?Improved inventions in steel framework and --" "I noticed," said the Nevadian, "that the statistics of Topaz City showedonly one carpenter crushed by falling timbers last year and he was caughtin a cyclone." "They abuse our sky line," continued the New Yorker, "and it is likelythat we are not yet artistic in the construction of our buildings. But Ican safely assert that we lead in pictorial and decorative art. In someof our houses can be found masterpieces in the way of paintings andsculpture. One who has the entree to our best galleries will find --" "Back up," exclaimed the man from Topaz City. "There was a game lastmonth in our town in which $90,000 changed hands on a pair of --" "Ta-romt-tara!" went the orchestra. The stage curtain, blushing pink atthe name "Asbestos" inscribed upon it, came down with a slow midsummermovement. The audience trickled leisurely down the elevator and stairs. On the sidewalk below, the New Yorker and the man from Topaz City shookhands with alcoholic gravity. The elevated crashed raucously, surfacecars hummed and clanged, cabmen swore, newsboys shrieked, wheels clatteredear-piercingly. The New Yorker conceived a happy thought, with which heaspired to clinch the pre-eminence of his city. "You must admit," said he, "that in the way of noise New York is far aheadof any other --" "Back to the everglades!" said the man from Topaz City. "In 1900, whenSousa's band and the repeating candidate were in our town you couldn't --" The rattle of an express wagon drowned the rest of the words.

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