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

but it don’t dawn upon me that it’s ours with a cherry in it. There ain’t enough rus in urbe about it to suit me. I’d be a good deal much better satisfied if the citizens had a straw or more in their hair, and run more to velveteen vests and buckeye watch charms. They don’t look easy to me.”

“You’ve got it, Billy,” says Silver. “All emigrants have it. New York’s bigger than Little Rock or Europe, and it frightens a foreigner. You’ll be all right. I tell you I feel like slapping the people here because they don’t send me all their money in laundry baskets, with germicide sprinkled over it. I hate to go down on the street to get it. Who wears the diamonds in this town? Why, Winnie, the Wiretapper’s wife, and Bella, the Buncosteerer’s bride. New Yorkers can be worked easier than a blue rose on a tidy. The only thing that bothers me is I know I’ll break the cigars in my vest pocket when I get my clothes all full of twenties.”

“I hope you are right, Monty,” says I; “but I wish all the same I had been satisfied with a small business in Little Rock. The crop of farmers is never so short out there but what you can get a few of ’em to sign a petition for a new post office that you can discount for $200 at the county bank. The people here appear to possess instincts of self-preservation and illiberality. I fear me that we are not cultured enough to tackle this game.”

“Don’t worry,” says Silver. “I’ve got this Jayville-near-Tarrytown correctly estimated as sure as North River is the Hudson and East River ain’t a river. Why, there are people living in four blocks of Broadway who never saw any kind of a building except a skyscraper in their lives! A good, live hustling Western man ought to get conspicuous enough here inside of three months to incur either Jerome’s clemency or Lawson’s displeasure.”

“Hyperbole aside,” says I, “do you know of any immediate system of buncoing the community out of a dollar or two except by applying to the Salvation Army or having a fit on Miss Helen Gould’s doorsteps?”

“Dozens of ’em,” says Silver. “How much capital have you got, Billy?”

“A thousand,” I told him.

“I’ve got $1,200,” says he. “We’ll pool and do a big piece of business. There’s so many ways we can make a million that I don’t know how to begin.”

The next morning Silver meets me at the hotel and he is all sonorous and stirred with a kind of silent joy.

“We’re to meet J. P. Morgan this afternoon,” says he. “A man I know in the hotel wants to introduce us. He’s a friend of his. He says he likes to meet people from the West.”

“That sounds nice and plausible,” says I. “I’d like to know Mr. Morgan.”

“It won’t hurt us a bit,” says Silver, “to get acquainted with a few finance kings. I kind of like the social way New York has with strangers.”

The man Silver knew was named Klein. At three o’clock Klein brought his Wall Street friend to see us in Silver’s room. “Mr. Morgan” looked some like his pictures, and he had a Turkish towel wrapped around his left foot, and he walked with a cane.

“Mr. Silver and Mr. Pescud,” says Klein. “It sounds superfluous,” says he, “to mention the name of the greatest financial⁠—”

“Cut it out, Klein,” says Mr. Morgan. “I’m glad to know you gents; I take great interest in the West. Klein tells me you’re from Little Rock. I think I’ve a railroad or two out there somewhere. If either of you guys would like to deal a hand or two of stud poker I⁠—”

“Now, Pierpont,” cuts in Klein, “you forget!”

“Excuse me, gents!” says Morgan; “since I’ve had the gout so bad I sometimes play a social game of cards at my house. Neither of you never knew One-eyed Peters, did you, while you was around Little Rock? He lived in Seattle, New Mexico.”

Before we could answer, Mr. Morgan hammers on the floor with his cane and begins to walk up and down, swearing in a loud tone of voice.

“They have been pounding your stocks today on the Street, Pierpont?” asks Klein, smiling.

“Stocks! No!” roars Mr. Morgan. “It’s that picture I sent an agent to Europe to buy. I just thought about it. He cabled me today that it ain’t to be found in all Italy. I’d pay $50,000 tomorrow for that picture⁠—yes, $75,000. I give the agent à la carte in purchasing it. I cannot understand why the art galleries will allow a De Vinchy to⁠—”

“Why, Mr. Morgan,” says Klein; “I thought you owned all of the De Vinchy paintings.”

“What is the picture like, Mr. Morgan?” asks Silver. “It must be as big as the side of the Flatiron Building.”

“I’m afraid your art education is on the bum, Mr. Silver,” says Morgan. “The picture is 27 inches by 42; and it is called ‘Love’s Idle Hour.’ It represents a number of cloak models doing the two-step on the bank of a purple river. The cablegram said it might have been brought to this country. My collection will never be complete without that picture. Well, so long, gents; us financiers must keep early hours.”

Mr. Morgan and Klein went away together in a cab. Me and Silver talked about how simple and unsuspecting great people was; and Silver said what a shame it would be to try to rob a man like Mr. Morgan; and I said I thought it would be rather imprudent, myself. Klein proposes a stroll after dinner; and me and him and Silver walks down toward Seventh Avenue to see the sights. Klein sees a pair of cuff links that instigate his admiration in a pawnshop window, and we all go in while he buys ’em.

After we got back to the hotel and Klein had gone, Silver jumps at me and waves his hands.

“Did you see it?” says he. “Did you see it, Billy?”

“What?” I