A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago | Page 3

ashamed; else why does he print them in a book, and how could Mr. Rosse be moved to make the striking designs with which the book is embellished? Quite enough has been said. The author, the newspaper editor, the proof-readers and revisers have done their utmost with "One Thousand and One Afternoons." The prefacer confesses failure. It is the turn of the reader. He may welcome the sketches in book form; he may turn scornfully from them and leave them to moulder in the stock-room of Messrs. Covici-McGee. To paraphrase an old comic opera lyric:
"You never can tell about a reader; Perhaps that's why we think them all so nice. You never find two alike at any one time And you never find one alike twice. You're never very certain that they read you, And you're often very certain that they don't. Though an author fancy still that he has the strongest will It's the reader has the strongest won't."
Yet I think that the book will succeed. It may succeed so far that Mr. Hecht will hear some brazen idiots remarking: "I like it better than 'Dorn' or 'Gargoyles'." Yes, just that ruinous thing may happen. But if it does Ben cannot blame his editor.
HENRY JUSTIN SMITH.
Chicago, July 1, 1922

CONTENTS
A Self-Made Man
An Iowa Humoresque
An Old Audience Speaks
Clocks and Owl Cars
Confessions
Coral, Amber and Jade
Coeur De Lion and The Soup and Fish
Dapper Pete and The Sucker Play
Dead Warrior
Don Quixote and His Last Windmill
"Fa'n Ta Mig!"
Fanny
Fantastic Lollypops
Fog Patterns
Grass Figures
Ill-Humoresque
Jazz Band Impressions
Letters
Meditation in E Minor
Michigan Avenue
Mishkin's Minyon
Mottka
Mr. Winkelberg
Mrs. Rodjezke's Last Job
Mrs. Sardotopolis' Evening Off
Night Diary
Nirvana
Notes For A Tragedy
On A Day Like This
Ornaments
Pandora's Box
Pitzela's Son
Queen Bess Feast
Ripples
Satraps At Play
Schopenhauer's Son
Sergt. Kuzick's Waterloo
Sociable Gamblers
Ten-Cent Wedding Rings
The Auctioneer's Wife
The Dagger Venus
The Exile
The Great Traveler The Indestructible Masterpiece
The Lake
The Little Fop
The Man From Yesterday
The Man Hunt
The Man With A Question
The Mother
The Pig
The Snob
The Soul of Sing Lee
The Sybarite
The Tattooer
The Thing In The Dark
The Watch Fixer
The Way Home
Thumbnail Lotharios
Thumbs Up and Down
To Bert Williams
Vagabondia
Waterfront Fancies
Where The "Blues" Sound
World Conquerors

FANNY
Why did Fanny do this? The judge would like to know. The judge would like to help her. The judge says: "Now, Fanny, tell me all about it."
All about it, all about it! Fanny's stoical face stares at the floor. If Fanny had words. But Fanny has no words. Something heavy in her heart, something vague and heavy in her thought--these are all that Fanny has.
Let the policewoman's records show. Three years ago Fanny came to Chicago from a place called Plano. Red-cheeked and black-haired, vivid-eyed and like an ear of ripe corn dropped in the middle of State and Madison streets, Fanny came to the city.
Ah, the lonely city, with its crowds and its lonely lights. The lonely buildings busy with a thousand lonelinesses. People laughing and hurrying along, people eager-eyed for something; summer parks and streets white with snow, the city moon like a distant window, pretty gewgaws in the stores--these are a part of Fanny's story.
The judge wants to know. Fanny's eyes look up. A dog takes a kick like this, with eyes like this, large, dumb and brimming with pathos. The dog's master is a mysterious and inexplicable dispenser of joys and sorrows. His caresses and his beatings are alike mysterious; their reasons seldom to be discerned, never fully understood.
Sometimes in this court where the sinners are haled, where "poised and prim and particular, society stately sits," his honor has a moment of confusion. Eyes lift themselves to him, eyes dumb and brimming with pathos. Eyes stare out of sordid faces, evil faces, wasted faces and say something not admissible as evidence. Eyes say: "I don't know, I don't know. What is it all about?"
These are not to be confused with the eyes that plead shrewdly for mercy, with eyes that feign dramatic na?vet��s and offer themselves like primping little penitents to his honor. His honor knows them fairly well. And understands them. They are eyes still bargaining with life.
But Fanny's eyes. Yes, the judge would like to know. A vagueness comes into his precise mind. He half-hears the familiar accusation that the policeman drones, a terribly matter-of-fact drone.
Another raid on a suspected flat. Routine, routine. Evil has its eternal root in the cities. A tireless Satan, bored with the monotony of his r?le; a tireless Justice, bored with the routine of tears and pleadings, lies and guilt.
There is no story in all this. Once his honor, walking home from a banquet, looked up and noticed the stars. Meaningless, immutable stars. There was nothing to be seen by looking at them. They were mysteries to be dismissed. Like the mystery of Fanny's eyes. Meaningless, immutable eyes. They do not bargain. Yet the world stares out of them. The face looks dumbly up at a judge.
No defense. The policeman's drone has ended and Fanny says nothing. This is