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White Muscats Of Alexandria
by
“What had you done?” I asked, forcing a smile, “to merit such terrible punishment?”
The young man blushed.
“Why,” he said, “my mother had been quite sick for a long time, and, to tempt her appetite, my father had journeyed ‘way uptown and at vast expense bought her a bunch of wonderful white hot-house grapes. I remember she wouldn’t eat them at first–just wanted to look at them–and my father hung them for her over the foot of the bed. Well, soon after he’d gone to business she fell asleep, leaving the grapes untouched. They tempted me, and I fell. I wanted to show off, I suppose, before my young friends in the street–there was a girl, Minnie Hopflekoppf, I think her name was, who’d passed me up for an Italian butcher’s son. I wanted to show her. I’m sure I didn’t mean to eat the things. I’m sure I meant to return with them and hang them back at the foot of the bed.”
“Please go on,” I managed to say. “This is such a very human page–I’m really excited to know what happened.”
“Well, one of those flashy Bowery dudes came loafing along and said: ‘Hi, Johnny, let’s have a look at the grapes,’ I let him take them, in my pride and innocence, and he wouldn’t give them back. He only laughed and began to eat them before my eyes. I begged for them, and wept, and told him how my mother was sick and my father had gone ‘way uptown to get the grapes for her because there were none such to be had in our neighborhood. And, please, he must give them back because they were White Muscats of Alexandria, very precious, and my father would kill me. But the young man only laughed until I began to make a real uproar. Then he said sharply to shut up, called me a young thief, and said if I said another word he’d turn me over to the police. Then he flung me a fifty-cent piece and went away, munching the grapes. And,” the young man finished, “the fifty-cent piece was lead.”
Then he looked up from his sketch and, seeing the expression of my face, gave a little cry of delight.
“Great Grief, man!” he cried, “stay as you are–only hold that expression for two minutes!”
But I have held it from that day to this.