MAN ABOUT TOWN

There were two or three things that I wanted to know. I do not care

about a mystery. So I began to inquire.

It took me two weeks to find out what women carry in dress suit cases.

And then I began to ask why a mattress is made in two pieces. This

serious query was at first received with suspicion because it sounded

like a conundrum. I was at last assured that its double form of

construction was designed to make lighter the burden of woman, who makes

up beds. I was so foolish as to persist, begging to know why, then, they

were not made in two equal pieces; whereupon I was shunned.

The third draught that I craved from the fount of knowledge was

enlightenment concerning the character known as A Man About Town. He was

more vague in my mind than a type should be. We must have a concrete

idea of anything, even if it be an imaginary idea, before we can

comprehend it. Now, I have a mental picture of John Doe that is as clear

as a steel engraving. His eyes are weak blue; he wears a brown vest

and a shiny black serge coat. He stands always in the sunshine chewing

something; and he keeps half-shutting his pocket knife and opening it

again with his thumb. And, if the Man Higher Up is ever found, take

my assurance for it, he will be a large, pale man with blue wristlets

showing under his cuffs, and he will be sitting to have his shoes

polished within sound of a bowling alley, and there will be somewhere

about him turquoises.

But the canvas of my imagination, when it came to limning the Man About

Town, was blank. I fancied that he bad a detachable sneer (like the

smile of the Cheshire cat) and attached cuffs; and that was all.

Whereupon I asked a newspaper reporter about him.

"Why," said he, "a 'Man About Town' something between a 'rounder' and

a 'clubman.' He isn't exactly--well, he fits in between Mrs. Fish's

receptions and private boxing bouts. He doesn't--well, he doesn't belong

either to the Lotos Club or to the Jerry McGeogheghan Galvanised Iron

Workers' Apprentices' Left Hook Chowder Association. I don't exactly

know how to describe him to you. You'll see him everywhere there's

anything doing. Yes, I suppose he's a type. Dress clothes every evening;

knows the ropes; calls every policeman and waiter in town by their first

names. No; he never travels with the hydrogen derivatives. You generally

see him alone or with another man."

My friend the reporter left me, and I wandered further afield. By this

time the 3126 electric lights on the Rialto were alight. People passed,

but they held me not. Paphian eyes rayed upon me, and left me unscathed.

Diners, heimgangers, shop-girls, confidence men, panhandlers, actors,

highwaymen, millionaires and outlanders hurried, skipped, strolled,

sneaked, swaggered and scurried by me; but I took no note of them. I

knew them all; I had read their hearts; they had served. I wanted my Man

About Town. He was a type, and to drop him would be an error--a

typograph--but no! let us continue.

Let us continue with a moral digression. To see a family reading the

Sunday paper gratifies. The sections have been separated. Papa is

earnestly scanning the page that pictures the young lady exercising

before an open window, and bending--but there, there! Mamma is

interested in trying to guess the missing letters in the word N_w Yo_k.

The oldest girls are eagerly perusing the financial reports, for a

certain young man remarked last Sunday night that he had taken a flyer

in Q., X. & Z. Willie, the eighteen-year-old son, who attends the New

York public school, is absorbed in the weekly article describing how to

make over an old skirt, for he hopes to take a prize in sewing on

graduation day.

Grandma is holding to the comic supplement with a two-hours' grip; and

little Tottie, the baby, is rocking along the best she can with the real

estate transfers. This view is intended to be reassuring, for it is

desirable that a few lines of this story be skipped. For it introduces

strong drink.

I went into a cafe to--and while it was being mixed I asked the man

who grabs up your hot Scotch spoon as soon as you lay it down what

he understood by the term, epithet, description, designation,

characterisation or appellation, viz.: a "Man About Town."

"Why," said he, carefully, "it means a fly guy that's wise to the

all-night push--see? It's a hot sport that you can't bump to the rail

anywhere between the Flatirons--see? I guess that's about what it

means."

I thanked him and departed.

On the sidewalk a Salvation lassie shook her contribution receptacle

gently against my waistcoat pocket.

"Would you mind telling me," I asked her, "if you ever meet with the

character commonly denominated as 'A Man About Town' during your daily

wanderings?"

"I think I know whom you mean," she answered, with a gentle smile. "We

see them in the same places night after night. They are the devil's body

guard, and if the soldiers of any army are as faithful as they are,

their commanders are well served. We go among them, diverting a few

pennies from their wickedness to the Lord's service."

She shook the box again and I dropped a dime into it.

In front of a glittering hotel a friend of mine, a critic, was climbing

from a cab. He seemed at leisure; and I put my question to him. He

answered me conscientiously, as I was sure he would.

"There is a type of 'Man About Town' in New York," he answered. "The

term is quite familiar to me, but I don't think I was ever called upon

to define the character before. It would be difficult to point you out

an exact specimen. I would say, offhand, that it is a man who had a

hopeless case of the peculiar New York disease of wanting to see and

know. At 6 o'clock each day life begins with him. He follows rigidly the

conventions of dress and manners; but in the business of poking his nose

into places where he does not belong he could give pointers to a civet

cat or a jackdaw. He is the man who has chased Bohemia about the town

from rathskeller to roof garden and from Hester street to Harlem until

you can't find a place in the city where they don't cut their spaghetti

with a knife. Your 'Man About Town' has done that. He is always on the

scent of something new. He is curiosity, impudence and omnipresence.

Hansoms were made for him, and gold-banded cigars; and the curse of

music at dinner. There are not so many of him; but his minority report

is adopted everywhere.

"I'm glad you brought up the subject; I've felt the influence of this

nocturnal blight upon our city, but I never thought to analyse it

before. I can see now that your 'Man About Town' should have been

classified long ago. In his wake spring up wine agents and cloak models;

and the orchestra plays 'Let's All Go Up to Maud's' for him, by request,

instead of Haendel. He makes his rounds every evening; while you and I

see the elephant once a week. When the cigar store is raided, he winks

at the officer, familiar with his ground, and walks away immune, while

you and I search among the Presidents for names, and among the stars for

addresses to give the desk sergeant."

My friend, the critic, paused to acquire breath for fresh eloquence.

I seized my advantage.

"You have classified him," I cried with joy. "You have painted his

portrait in the gallery of city types. But I must meet one face to face.

I must study the Man About Town at first hand. Where shall I find him?

How shall I know him?"

Without seeming to hear me, the critic went on. And his cab-driver was

waiting for his fare, too.

"He is the sublimated essence of Butt-in; the refined, intrinsic extract

of Rubber; the concentrated, purified, irrefutable, unavoidable spirit

of Curiosity and Inquisitiveness. A new sensation is the breath in his

nostrils; when his experience is exhausted he explores new fields with

the indefatigability of a--"

"Excuse me," I interrupted, "but can you produce one of this type? It is

a new thing to me. I must study it. I will search the town over until I

find one. Its habitat must be here on Broadway."

"I am about to dine here," said my friend. "Come inside, and if there is

a Man About Town present I will point him out to you. I know most of the

regular patrons here."

"I am not dining yet," I said to him. "You will excuse me. I am going to

find my Man About Town this night if I have to rake New York from the

Battery to Little Coney Island."

I left the hotel and walked down Broadway. The pursuit of my type gave a

pleasant savour of life and interest to the air I breathed. I was glad

to be in a city so great, so complex and diversified. Leisurely and

with something of an air I strolled along with my heart expanding at

the thought that I was a citizen of great Gotham, a sharer in its

magnificence and pleasures, a partaker in its glory and prestige.

I turned to cross the street. I heard something buzz like a bee, and

then I took a long, pleasant ride with Santos-Dumont.

When I opened my eyes I remembered a smell of gasoline, and I said

aloud: "Hasn't it passed yet?"

A hospital nurse laid a hand that was not particularly soft upon my brow

that was not at all fevered. A young doctor came along, grinned, and

handed me a morning newspaper.

"Want to see how it happened?" he asked cheerily. I read the article.

Its headlines began where I heard the buzzing leave off the night

before. It closed with these lines:

"--Bellevue Hospital, where it was said that his injuries were not

serious. He appeared to be a typical Man About Town."

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 636