Short Fiction by O. Henry (librera reader txt) 📕

“Most of the crowd seemed to be goin’ up and I went up. And then they seemed to be goin’ down, and I went down. I asks a man in a light overcoat with a blue jaw leanin’ against a lamppost where was this Tenderloin.

“Up that way,” he says, wavin’ his finger-ring.

“ ‘How’ll I know it when I get to it?’ I asks.

“ ‘Yah!’ says he, like he was sick. ‘Easy! Youse’ll see a flax-headed cull stakin’ a doll in a 98-cent shirtwaist to a cheese sandwich and sarsaparilla, and five Salvation Army corporals waitin’ round for de change. Dere’ll be a phonograph playin’ and nine cops gettin’ ready to raid de joint. Dat’ll be it.’

“I asked that fellow where I was then.

“ ‘Two blocks from de Pump,’ says he.

“I goes on uptown, and seein’ nothin’ particular in the line of sinful delight, I strikes ’crosstown to another avenue. That was Sixth, I reckon. People was still walkin’ up and down, puttin’ first one foot in front and then the other in the irreligious and wicked manner that I suppose has given the Tenderloin its frivolous reputation. Street cars was runnin’ past, most impious and unregenerate; and the profligate Dagoes was splittin’ chestnuts to roast with a wild abandon that reminded me considerably of doings in Paris, France. The dissipated bootblacks was sleepin’ in their chairs, and the roast peanut whistles sounded gay and devilish among the mad throng that leaned ag’inst the awnin’ posts.

“A fellow with a high hat and brass buttons gets down off the top of his covered sulky, and says to me, ‘Keb, sir?’

“ ‘Whereabouts is this Tenderloin, Colonel?’ I asks.

“ ‘You’re right in the centre of it, boss,’ says he. ‘You are standin’ right now on the wickedest corner in New York. Not ten feet from here a pushcart man had his pocket picked last night; and if you’re here for a week I can show you at least two moonlight trolley parties go by on the New Amsterdam line.’

“ ‘Look here,’ says I, ‘I’m out for a razoo. I’ve got nine iron medallions of Liberty wearin’ holes in my pocket linin’. I want to split this Tenderloin in two if there’s anything in it. Now put me on to something that’s real degraded and boisterous and sizzling with cultured and uproarious sin. Something in the way of metropolitan vice that I can be proud of when I go back home. Ain’t you got any civic pride about you?’

“This sulky driver scratched the heel of his chin.

“ ‘Just now, boss,’ says he, ‘everything’s layin’ low. There’s a tip out that Jerome’s cigarettes ain’t agreein’ with him. If it was any other time⁠—say,’ says he, like an idea struck him, ‘how’d you like to take in the all-night restaurants? Lots of electric lights, boss, and people and fun. Sometimes they laugh right out loud. Out-of-town visitors mostly visit our restaurants.’

“ ‘Get away,’ says I, ‘I’m beginnin’ to think your old Tenderloin is nothin’ but the butcher’s article. A little spice and infamy and audible riot is what I am after. If you can’t furnish it go back and climb on your demi-barouche. We have restaurants out West’ I tells him, ‘where we eat grub attended by artificial light and laughter. Where is the boasted badness of your unjustly vituperated city?’

“The fellow rubs his chin again. ‘Deed if I know, boss,’ says he, ‘right now. You see Jerome’⁠—and then he buds out with another idea. ‘Tell you what,’ says he, ‘be the very thing! You jump in my keb and I’ll drive you over to Brooklyn. My aunt’s giving a euchre party tonight,’ says he, ‘because Miles O’Reilly is busy, watchin’ the natatorium⁠—somebody tipped him off it was a poolroom. Can you play euchre? The keb’ll be $3.50 an hour. Jump right in, boss.’

“That was the best I could do on the wickedest corner in New York. So I walks over where it’s more righteous, hopin’ there might be somethin’ doin’ among the Pharisees. Everything, so far as I could see, was as free from guile as a hammock at a Chautauqua picnic. The people just walked up and down, speakin’ of chrysanthemum shows and oratorios, and enjoyin’ the misbegotten reputation of bein’ the wickedest rakes on the continent.”

“It’s too bad. Bill.” I said, “that you were disappointed in the Tenderloin. Didn’t you have a chance to spend any of your money?”

“Oh, yes,” said Bill. “I managed to drop one dollar over on the edge of the sinful district. I was goin’ along down a boulevard when I hears an awful hollerin’ and fussin’ that sounded good⁠—it reminded me of a real enjoyable roughhouse out West. Some fellow was quarrelin’ at the top of his voice, usin’ cuss words, and callin’ down all kinds of damnation about somethin’.

“The sounds come out through a big door in a high buildin’ and I went in to see the fun. Thinks I, I’ll get a small slice of this here Tenderloin anyhow. Well, I went in, and that’s where I dropped the dollar. They came around and collected it.”

“What was inside. Bill?” I asked.

“A fellow told me, when we come out,” said Bill, “it was a church, and one of these preachers that mixes up in politics was denouncin’ the evils of the Tenderloin.”

Nine o’clock at last, and the drudging toil of the day was ended. Lena climbed to her room in the third half-story of the Quarrymen’s Hotel. Since daylight she had slaved, doing the work of a full-grown woman, scrubbing the floors, washing the heavy ironstone plates and cups, making the beds, and supplying the insatiate demands for wood and water in that turbulent and depressing hostelry.

The din of the day’s quarrying was over⁠—the blasting and drilling, the creaking of the great cranes, the shouts of the foremen, the backing and shifting of the flatcars hauling the heavy blocks of limestone. Down in the hotel office three or four of the labourers