The Big Town

The Big Town
How I and the Mrs. go to New York to see life and get Katie a husband
by Ring W. Lardner
[Illustrations by May Wilson Preston]

First published 1920
Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Copyright 1921.

Cast of Characters
KATE... a small-town girl with big league ideas... and $75,000!
And these are some of the characters Katie met in the big city...
Francis Griffin... a bachelor who cleaned up on Wall Street.
Trumbull... no matter how old you'd guess he was, he was older.
Ritchey... a chauffeur with looks, a limousine, and lots of free time.
Lady Perkins... a society dame who could really put on the dog.
Bob Codd... a famous aviator, until a little something went wrong.
Herbert Daley... he owned a string of race horses and developed a taste
for women.
Sid Mercer... a good-looking jockey who didn't have much strength of
character.

Jimmy Ralston... a comedian who didn't think too much of himself.

And here are some of the REAL characters you'll meet...
William Jennings Bryan... he always looked like somebody was
tickling his feet.
Ziggy... he ran a little show.
Ed Wynn... he borrowed a couple of ideas, just to get a flop off his
hands.
Man o' War... he could run, too.
Burleigh Grimes... the Dodgers' spitball pitcher was just a prop in a
play.

The Big Town
I Quick Returns
THIS is just a clipping from one of the New York papers; a little
kidding piece that they had in about me two years ago. It says:
Hoosier Cleans Up in Wall Street. Employees of the brokerage firm of
H. L. Krause & Co. are authority for the statement that a wealthy
Indiana speculator made one of the biggest killings of the year in the
Street yesterday afternoon. No very definite information was obtainable,
as the Westerner's name was known to only one of the firm's employees,
Francis Griffin, and he was unable to recall it last night.
You'd think I was a millionaire and that I'd made a sucker out of
Morgan or something, but it's only a kid, see? If they'd of printed the
true story they wouldn't of had no room left for that day's selections at
Pimlico, and God knows that would of been fatal.

But if you want to hear about it, I'll tell you.
Well, the War wound up in the fall of 1918. The only member of my
family that was killed in it was my wife's stepfather. He died of grief
when it ended with him two hundred thousand dollars ahead. I
immediately had a black bandage sewed round my left funny bone, but
when they read us the will I felt all right again and tore it off. Our share
was seventy-five thousand dollars. This was after we had paid for the
inheritance tax and the amusement stamps on a horseless funeral.
My young sister-in-law, Katie, dragged down another seventy-five
thousand dollars and the rest went to the old bird that had been foreman
in Papa's factory. This old geezer had been starving to death for twenty
years on the wages my stepfather-in-law give him, and the rest of us
didn't make no holler when his name was read off for a small chunk,
especially as he didn't have no teeth to enjoy it with.
I could of had this old foreman's share, maybe, if I'd of took advantage
of the offer "Father" made me just before his daughter and I was
married. I was over in Niles, Michigan, where they lived, and he
insisted on me seeing his factory, which meant smelling it too. At that
time I was knocking out about eighteen hundred dollars per annum
selling cigars out of South Bend, and the old man said he would start
me in with him at only about a fifty per cent cut, but we would also
have the privilege of living with him and my wife's kid sister.
"They's a lot to be learnt about this business," he says, "but if you
would put your mind on it you might work up to manager. Who
knows?"
"My nose knows," I said, and that ended it.
The old man had lost some jack and went into debt a good many years
ago, and for a long wile before the war begin about all as he was able to
do was support himself and the two gals and pay off a part of what he
owed. When the war broke loose and leather went up to hell and gone I
and my wife thought he would get prosperous, but before this country
went in his business went on about the same as usual.

"I don't know how they do it," he would say. "Other leather men is
getting rich on contracts