We were all getting along great; everybody was calling Alice by her first name, and Alice was saying, "I'll leave it to Bill if it ain't right," and speaking of Manager Frohman as Charley, when Johnny Black, the president of all the trouble-makers, spoiled the whole business. It appears that Alice's eyelids were slightly granulated. It was barely noticeable, and nobody but a dog like Johnny would have mentioned such a thing. Anyway, Johnny suggested that the lady's granulated eyelids were probably caused by looking for a rise in "Sugar." Jim, you should have seen Alice go up! Johnny certainly cut her weights fine and proper. Of course, Johnny was batting under two hundred, but for some unknown reason we all got the blue pencil. She called Johnny an illy bred, low-born, undersized, cavery-faced Protestant pup. Johnny was so excited he couldn't get back at all. He just sputtered and spit and made motions with his mouth. It was grand and touching and refined. I cut in and tried to square it, and the lady told me I was a spangle-eyed big dub. I'll bet that's one of the worst things a fellow can be. **** was then told what he was, and he put it down in a book, after which Alice finished it all up with a flood of tears. The head waiter came up and said: "Look a here, Mary, what ails you, anyway? You're getting so lately you turn them tears on every night. Be a good fellow, and don't make a lot of gents think we're running a morgue. You've blowed half your make-up as it is." Mary, alias Alice, gave the head waiter one withering look, and left the place. We started to move on, but found it was impossible to bring old K. C. back. We pounded him and yelled at him for ten minutes, but there wasn't a leaf stirring, except once, when he came to long enough to remark that he was sweating like a June bride. We finally took his watch and all his money but two dollars, and left him like a dog. A fellow is perfectly safe in New York without any money.
We then mounted our deep-sea-going cab, and told the skipper we were for the eats. He took us to a big restaurant on upper Sixth Avenue. We told the waiter to bring us everything that was good. When the waiter returned with the knives and forks, he also brought us some Dill pickles. I took a bite at one of them, and she squirted and hit a fellow at the next table in the eye. I guess a Dill pickle must smart right pert--however, I won't bore you with any details. Jim, I can remember that just at the start of it a waiter happened to be passing with a very large order on his tray, and for a while the air was literally crowded with oyster stews, Welsh rarebits, glasses, showers of booze, frogs' legs, and everything that wasn't chained down. When the smoke cleared away I was occupying my regular position in the center of the car track. They wouldn't let me in again, and the rest of the fellows were too hungry to come out; so there I was "Alone in New York." The cabman then asked for his money for the whole day. I told him that the lack of money was the least of my troubles, and I went down after ninety dollars that I had pinned in my trousers watch-pocket with a safety pin. Exit money. Whoever got to me hadn't even left the safety pin. The cabman made some remarks about taking it out of my hide, and I spent all of twenty minutes proving to him that the rest of the bunch would settle when they came out. I then walked all the way down to the hotel, alone and hungry. In my whole life I never met such a quarrelsome lot of people. You know yourself, Jim, that any one who can guess when a Dill pickle is going to squirt is entitled to the barrel of flour, or the gold-plated oil stove; and as far as that ninety is concerned, I suppose I went in front of the City Hall and presented it to somebody. I'll bet, all told, I've been in a hundred scraps in New York, and have never won a battle. I'll win out yet, if I have to go out and beat up a poor old apple-woman.
Say, Jim, the greatest game in New York is to walk into some hotel Palm-room with a particularly swell girl and watch all the rest of them get jealous. You know that Harper girl from Louisville?
Well, I showed her around New York a couple of months ago, and she made them all look like a summer resort on a rainy day. When we entered any of the big restaurants I would send her along ahead, and I would trail to hear the cracks. It was grand to see them rubber and hear the women say, "She isn't so much," or "My, isn't she padded frightfully!" and hear the men say, "Gee! A dream," or "Pipe, Dan, I guess she's perfectly miserable, eh?" I lost two or three sets of studs that trip just from swelling up.
Well, I'm home, and here I am going to stay. Just on the quiet, I never felt so bad in my life. I'm all sore and stiff from that car-track habit, and talk about your jumps! Why, a minute ago Iwas sitting as quiet as a lamb, when, without the slightest warning I did a leap straight up into the air about four feet. I wonder what causes that? Coming down to the office this morning somebody kept calling me continually, and when I would look around there wouldn't be a soul near, and I am all the time hearing bands of music, and maybe I am not perspiring!
If I ever get over this, that narrow-path gag for your Uncle Bill for a long time to come. When you get to throwing your money away there is nothing doing. Far be it from me casting up, neither am Ia hard loser, but I certainly could use that ninety. Well, that'll be about all.
Yours as ever, Billy.
P. S.--Just received the following telegram from Johnny Black, dated New York, 1:50 P. M.: "Old K. C. has just been sighted.
She's a little dismantled, but game. She's arranging for a foolisher for a whole week, and I am going to stay with him.
**** sends best. Chickens has a roll."
I wired Johnny as follows: "If you see a safety pin anywhere around Chickens, that roll belongs to me."
