The Voice of the City | Page 5

extract, of
which one drop shall form the thing we seek."
"Do you remember," asked the poet, with a chuckle, "that California
girl we met at Stiver's studio last week? Well, I'm on my way to see her.
She repeated that poem of mine, ' The Tribute of Spring,' word for
word. She's the smartest proposi- tion in this town just at present. Say,
how does this confounded tie look? I spoiled four before I got one to
set right."

"And the Voice that I asked you about?" I in- quired.
"Oh, she doesn't sing," said Cleon. "But you ought to bear her recite my
'Angel of the Inshore Wind.'"
I passed on. I cornered a newsboy and be flashed at me prophetic pink
papers that outstripped the news by two revolutions of the clock's
longest hand.
"Son," I said, while I pretended to chase coins in my penny pocket,
"doesn't it sometimes seem to you as if the city ought to be able to talk?
All these ups and downs and funny business and queer things hap-
pening every daywhat would it say, do you think, if it could speak?
"Quit yer kiddin'," said the boy. "Wot paper yer want? I got no time to
waste. It's Mag's birthday, and I want thirty cents to git her a present."
Here was no interpreter of the city's mouthpiece. I bought a paper, and
consigned its undeclared treaties, its premeditated murders and
unfought bat- tles to an ash can.
Again I repaired to the park and sat in the moon shade. I thought and
thought, and wondered why none could tell me what I asked for.
And then, as swift as light from a fixed star, the answer came to me. I
arose and hurried - hurried as so many reasoners must, back around my
circle. I knew the answer and I bugged it in my breast as I flew, fearing
lest some one would stop me and demand my secret.
Aurelia was still on the stoop. The moon was higher and the ivy
shadows were deeper. I sat at her side and we watched a little cloud tilt
at the drifting moon and go asunder, quite pale and discomfited.
And then, wonder of wonders and delight of de- lights! our hands
somehow touched, and our fingers closed together and did not part.
After half an hour Aurelia said, with that smile of hers:
"Do you know, you haven't spoken a word since you came back! "
"That," said I, nodding wisely, "is the Voice of the City."

THE COMPLETE LIFE OF JOHN HOPKINS
There is a saying that no man has tasted the full flavor of life until he
has known poverty, love and war. The justness of this reflection
commends it to the lover of condensed philosophy. The three condi-
tions embrace about all there is in life worth knowing. A surface
thinker might deem that wealth should be added to the list. Not so.
When a poor man finds a long-bidden quarter-dollar that has slipped

through a rip into his vest lining, be sounds the pleasure of life with a
deeper plummet than any millionaire can hope to cast.
It seems that the wise executive power that rules life has thought best to
drill man in these three con- ditions; and none may escape all three. In
rural places the terms do not mean so much. Poverty is less pinching;
love is temperate; war shrinks to con- tests about boundary lines and
the neighbors' hens. It is in the cities that our epigram gains in truth and
vigor; and it has remained for one John Hopkins to crowd the
experience into a rather small space of time.
The Hopkins flat was like a thousand others. There was a rubber plant
in one window; a flea- bitten terrier sat in the other, wondering when he
was to have his day.
John Hopkins was like a thousand others. He worked at $20 per week
in a nine-story, red-brick building at either Insurance, Buckle's Hoisting
En- gines, Chiropody, Loans, Pulleys, Boas Renovated, Waltz
Guaranteed in Five Lessons, or Artificial Limbs. It is not for us to
wring Mr. Hopkins's avo- cation from these outward signs that be.
Mrs. Hopkins was like a thousand others. The auriferous tooth, the
sedentary disposition, the Sun- day afternoon wanderlust, the draught
upon the delicatessen store for home-made comforts, the furor for
department store marked-down sales, the feeling of superiority to the
lady in the third-floor front who wore genuine ostrich tips and had two
names over her bell, the mucilaginous hours during which she
remained glued to the window sill, the vigi- lant avoidance of the
instalment man, the tireless patronage of the acoustics of the
dumb-waiter shaft - all the attributes of the Gotham flat-dweller