The Big Town | Page 5

Ring Lardner
the number of trains, to say nothing about the victuals; and they's
two or three times as many people traveling, because they can't throw
their money away fast enough at home. So the result is that the wise
guys keeps an eye on their watch and when it's about twenty minutes to
dinner time they race to the diner and park against the door and get
quick action; and after they've eat the first time they go out and stand in
the vestibule and wait till it's their turn again, as one Federal meal don't
do nothing to your appetite only whet it, you might say.
Well, anyway, I was playing the old rules and by the time I and the two
gals started for the diner we run up against the outskirts of a crowd
pretty near as big as the ones that waits outside restaurant windows to
watch a pancake turn turtle. About eight o'clock we got to where we
could see the wealthy dining car conductor in the distance, but it was
only about once every quarter of an hour that he raised a hand, and then
he seemed to of had all but one of his fingers shot off.
I have often heard it said that the way to a man's heart is through his
stomach, but every time I ever seen men and women keep waiting for
their eats it was always the frail sex that give the first yelp, and
personally I've often wondered what would of happened in the trenches

Over There if ladies had of been occupying them when the rations
failed to show up. I guess the bombs bursting round would of sounded
like Sweet and Low sang by a quextette of deef mutes.
Anyway, my two charges was like wild animals, and when the con
finally held up two fingers I didn't have no more chance or desire to
stop them than as if they was the Center College Football Club right
after opening prayer.
The pair of them was ushered to a table for four where they already was
a couple of guys making the best of it, and it wasn't more than ten
minutes later when one of these birds dipped his bill in the finger bowl
and staggered out, but by the time I took his place the other gent and
my two gals was talking like barbers.
The guy was Francis Griffin that's in the clipping. But when Ella
introduced us all as she said was, "This is my husband," without
mentioning his name, which she didn't know at that time, or mine,
which had probably slipped her memory.
Griffin looked at me like I was a side dish that he hadn't ordered. Well,
I don't mind snubs except when I get them, so I ast him if he wasn't
from Sioux City--you could tell he was from New York by his blue
collar.
"From Sioux City!" he says. "I should hope not!"
"I beg your pardon," I said. "You look just like a photographer I used to
know out there."
"I'm a New Yorker," he said, "and I can't get home too soon."
"Not on this train, you can't," I said.
"I missed the Century," he says.
"Well," I says with a polite smile, "the Century's loss is our gain."
"You wife's been telling me," he says, "that you're moving to the Big

Town. Have you ever been there?"
"Only for a few hours," I says.
"Well," he said, "when you've been there a few weeks you'll
wonder why you ever lived anywhere else. When I'm away from old
Broadway I always feel like I'm only camping out."
Both the gals smiled their appreciation, so I says: "That certainly
expresses it. You'd ought to remember that line and give it to Georgie
Cohan."
"Old Georgie!" he says. "I'd give him anything I got and welcome. But
listen! Your wife mentioned something about a good hotel to stop at
wile you're looking for a home. Take my advice and pick out one that's
near the center of things; you'll more than make up the difference in
taxi bills. I lived up in the Hundreds one winter and it averaged me ten
dollars a day in cab fares."
"You must of had a pleasant home life," I says.
"Me!" he said. "I'm an old bachelor."
"Old!" says Kate, and her and the Mrs. both giggled.
"But seriously," he says, "if I was you I would go right to the Baldwin,
where you can get a room for twelve dollars a day for the three of you;
and you're walking distance from the theaters or shops or cafés or
anywheres you want to go."
"That sounds grand!" said Ella.
"As far as I'm concerned," I said, "I'd just as lief
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