Vuyning left his club, cursing it softly, without any particular anger. From ten in the morning until eleven it had bored him immeasurably. Kirk with his fish story, Brooks with his Porto Rico cigars, old Morrison with his anecdote about the widow, Hepburn with his invariable luck at billiards–all these afflictions had been repeated without […]

Miss Lynnette D’Armande turned her back on Broadway. This was but tit for tat, because Broadway had often done the same thing to Miss D’Armande. Still, the “tats” seemed to have it, for the ex-leading lady of the “Reaping the Whirlwind” company had everything to ask of Broadway, while there was no vice-versa. So Miss […]

George Washington, with his right arm upraised, sits his iron horse at the lower corner of Union Square, forever signaling the Broadway cars to stop as they round the curve into Fourteenth Street. But the cars buzz on, heedless, as they do at the beck of a private citizen, and the great General must feel, […]

Half of this story can be found in the records of the Police Department; the other half belongs behind the business counter of a newspaper office. One afternoon two weeks after Millionaire Norcross was found in his apartment murdered by a burglar, the murderer, while strolling serenely down Broadway ran plump against Detective Barney Woods. […]

From near the village of Harmony, at the foot of the Green Mountains, came Miss Medora Martin to New York with her color-box and easel. Miss Medora resembled the rose which the autumnal frosts had spared the longest of all her sister blossoms. In Harmony, when she started alone to the wicked city to study […]

There is a hotel on Broadway that has escaped discovery by the summer-resort promoters. It is deep and wide and cool. Its rooms are finished in dark oak of a low temperature. Home-made breezes and deep-green shrubbery give it the delights without the inconveniences of the Adirondacks. One can mount its broad staircases or glide […]

Miss Posie Carrington had earned her success. She began life handicapped by the family name of “Boggs,” in the small town known as Cranberry Corners. At the age of eighteen she had acquired the name of “Carrington” and a position in the chorus of a metropolitan burlesque company. Thence upward she had ascended by the […]

“During the recent warmed-over spell,” said my friend Carney, driver of express wagon No. 8,606, “a good many opportunities was had of observing human nature through peekaboo waists. “The Park Commissioner and the Commissioner of Polis and the Forestry Commission gets together and agrees to let the people sleep in the parks until the Weather […]

Down South whenever any one perpetrates some particularly monumental piece of foolishness everybody says: “Send for Jesse Holmes.” Jesse Holmes is the Fool-Killer. Of course he is a myth, like Santa Claus and Jack Frost and General Prosperity and all those concrete conceptions that are supposed to represent an idea that Nature has failed to […]

At the hazard of wearying you this tale of vehement emotions must be prefaced by a discourse on geometry. Nature moves in circles; Art in straight lines. The natural is rounded; the artificial is made up of angles. A man lost in the snow wanders, in spite of himself, in perfect circles; the city man’s […]

Ravenel–Ravenel, the traveller, artist and poet, threw his magazine to the floor. Sammy Brown, broker’s clerk, who sat by the window, jumped. “What is it, Ravvy?” he asked. “The critics been hammering your stock down?” “Romance is dead,” said Ravenel, lightly. When Ravenel spoke lightly he was generally serious. He picked up the magazine and […]

“We sail at eight in the morning on the Celtic,” said Honoria, plucking a loose thread from her lace sleeve. “I heard so,” said young Ives, dropping his hat, and muffing it as he tried to catch it, “and I came around to wish you a pleasant voyage.” “Of course you heard it,” said Honoria, […]

There is an aristocracy of the public parks and even of the vagabonds who use them for their private apartments. Vallance felt rather than knew this, but when he stepped down out of his world into chaos his feet brought him directly to Madison Square. Raw and astringent as a schoolgirl–of the old order–young May […]

There are a few editor men with whom I am privileged to come in contact. It has not been long since it was their habit to come in contact with me. There is a difference. They tell me that with a large number of the manuscripts that are submitted to them come advices (in the […]

One may hope, in spite of the metaphorists, to avoid the breath of the deadly upas tree; one may, by great good fortune, succeed in blacking the eye of the basilisk; one might even dodge the attentions of Cerberus and Argus, but no man, alive or dead, can escape the gaze of the Rubberer. New […]

“One thousand dollars,” repeated Lawyer Tolman, solemnly and severely, “and here is the money.” Young Gillian gave a decidedly amused laugh as he fingered the thin package of new fifty-dollar notes. “It’s such a confoundedly awkward amount,” he explained, genially, to the lawyer. “If it had been ten thousand a fellow might wind up with […]

Robert Walmsley’s descent upon the city resulted in a Kilkenny struggle. He came out of the fight victor by a fortune and a reputation. On the other hand, he was swallowed up by the city. The city gave him what he demanded and then branded him with its brand. It remodelled, cut, trimmed and stamped […]

Long before the springtide is felt in the dull bosom of the yokel does the city man know that the grass-green goddess is upon her throne. He sits at his breakfast eggs and toast, begirt by stone walls, opens his morning paper and sees journalism leave vernalism at the post. For, whereas, spring’s couriers were […]

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 […]

Big Jim Dougherty was a sport. He belonged to that race of men. In Manhattan it is a distinct race. They are the Caribs of the North–strong, artful, self-sufficient, clannish, honorable within the laws of their race, holding in lenient contempt neighboring tribes who bow to the measure of Society’s tapeline. I refer, of course, […]