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

“I’ve been living in New York seven years,” said Merritt. “It’s been eight since we punched cows together in Old Man Garcia’s outfit. Well, let’s go to a café, anyhow. It sounds good to hear it called ‘grub’ again.”

They picked their way through the crowd to a hotel, and drifted, as by a natural law, to the bar.

“Speak up,” invited Greenbrier.

“A dry Martini,” said Merritt.

“Oh, Lord!” cried Greenbrier; “and yet me and you once saw the same pink Gila monsters crawling up the walls of the same hotel in Canyon Diablo! A dry⁠—but let that pass. Whiskey straight⁠—and they’re on you.”

Merritt smiled, and paid.

They lunched in a small extension of the dining room that connected with the café. Merritt dexterously diverted his friend’s choice, that hovered over ham and eggs, to a purée of celery, a salmon cutlet, a partridge pie and a desirable salad.

“On the day,” said Greenbrier, grieved and thunderous, “when I can’t hold but one drink before eating when I meet a friend I ain’t seen in eight years at a 2 by 4 table in a thirty-cent town at 1 o’clock on the third day of the week, I want nine broncos to kick me forty times over a 640-acre section of land. Get them statistics?”

“Right, old man,” laughed Merritt. “Waiter, bring an absinthe frappé and⁠—what’s yours, Greenbrier?”

“Whiskey straight,” mourned Nye. “Out of the neck of a bottle you used to take it, Longy⁠—straight out of the neck of a bottle on a galloping pony⁠—Arizona redeye, not this ab⁠—oh, what’s the use? They’re on you.”

Merritt slipped the wine card under his glass.

“All right. I suppose you think I’m spoiled by the city. I’m as good a Westerner as you are, Greenbrier; but, somehow, I can’t make up my mind to go back out there. New York is comfortable⁠—comfortable. I make a good living, and I live it. No more wet blankets and riding herd in snowstorms, and bacon and cold coffee, and blowouts once in six months for me. I reckon I’ll hang out here in the future. We’ll take in the theatre tonight, Greenbrier, and after that we’ll dine at⁠—”

“I’ll tell you what you are, Merritt,” said Greenbrier, laying one elbow in his salad and the other in his butter. “You are a concentrated, effete, unconditional, short-sleeved, gotch-eared Miss Sally Walker. God made you perpendicular and suitable to ride straddle and use cuss words in the original. Wherefore you have suffered his handiwork to elapse by removing yourself to New York and putting on little shoes tied with strings, and making faces when you talk. I’ve seen you rope and tie a steer in 42½. If you was to see one now you’d write to the Police Commissioner about it. And these flapdoodle drinks that you inoculate your system with⁠—these little essences of cowslip with acorns in ’em, and paregoric flip⁠—they ain’t anyways in assent with the cordiality of manhood. I hate to see you this way.”

“Well, Mr. Greenbrier,” said Merritt, with apology in his tone, “in a way you are right. Sometimes I do feel like I was being raised on the bottle. But, I tell you, New York is comfortable⁠—comfortable. There’s something about it⁠—the sights and the crowds, and the way it changes every day, and the very air of it that seems to tie a one-mile-long stake rope around a man’s neck, with the other end fastened somewhere about Thirty-fourth Street. I don’t know what it is.”

“God knows,” said Greenbrier sadly, “and I know. The East has gobbled you up. You was venison, and now you’re veal. You put me in mind of a japonica in a window. You’ve been signed, sealed and diskivered. Requiescat in hoc signo. You make me thirsty.”

“A green chartreuse here,” said Merritt to the waiter.

“Whiskey straight,” sighed Greenbrier, “and they’re on you, you renegade of the roundups.”

“Guilty, with an application for mercy,” said Merritt. “You don’t know how it is, Greenbrier. It’s so comfortable here that⁠—”

“Please loan me your smelling salts,” pleaded Greenbrier. “If I hadn’t seen you once bluff three bluffers from Mazatzal City with an empty gun in Phoenix⁠—”

Greenbrier’s voice died away in pure grief.

“Cigars!” he called harshly to the waiter, to hide his emotion.

“A pack of Turkish cigarettes for mine,” said Merritt.

“They’re on you,” chanted Greenbrier, struggling to conceal his contempt.

At seven they dined in the Where-to-Dine-Well column.

That evening a galaxy had assembled there. Bright shone the lights o’er fair women and br⁠—let it go, anyhow⁠—brave men. The orchestra played charmingly. Hardly had a tip from a diner been placed in its hands by a waiter when it would burst forth into soniferousness. The more beer you contributed to it the more Meyerbeer it gave you. Which is reciprocity.

Merritt put forth exertions on the dinner. Greenbrier was his old friend, and he liked him. He persuaded him to drink a cocktail.

“I take the horehound tea,” said Greenbrier, “for old times’ sake. But I’d prefer whiskey straight. They’re on you.”

“Right!” said Merritt. “Now, run your eye down that bill of fare and see if it seems to hitch on any of these items.”

“Lay me on my lava bed!” said Greenbrier, with bulging eyes. “All these specimens of nutriment in the grub wagon! What’s this? Horse with the heaves? I pass. But look along! Here’s truck for twenty roundups all spelled out in different directions. Wait till I see.”

The viands ordered, Merritt turned to the wine list.

“This Medoc isn’t bad,” he suggested.

“You’re the doc,” said Greenbrier. “I’d rather have whiskey straight. It’s on you.”

Greenbrier looked around the room. The waiter brought things and took dishes away. He was observing. He saw a New York restaurant crowd enjoying itself.

“How was the range when you left the Gila?” asked Merritt.

“Fine,” said Greenbrier. “You see that lady in the red speckled silk at that table. Well, she could warm over her beans at my campfire. Yes, the range was good. She looks as nice as a white mustang I see once on Black River.”

When the coffee came,