And, naturally, the city caught the contagious air of entre--the working
girls, poor ugly souls, wrapping soap in the factories and showing
finery in the big stores, dreamed that perhaps in the spectacular
excitement of this winter they might obtain for themselves the coveted
male--as in a muddled carnival crowd an inefficient pickpocket may
consider his chances increased. And the chimneys commenced to smoke and
the subway's foulness was freshened. And the actresses came out in new
plays and the publishers came out with new books and the Castles came
out with new dances. And the railroads came out with new schedules
containing new mistakes instead of the old ones that the commuters had
grown used to....
The City was coming out!
Anthony, walking along Forty-second Street one afternoon under a
steel-gray sky, ran unexpectedly into Richard Caramel emerging from the
Manhattan Hotel barber shop. It was a cold day, the first definitely
cold day, and Caramel had on one of those knee-length, sheep-lined coats
long worn by the working men of the Middle West, that were just coming
into fashionable approval. His soft hat was of a discreet dark brown,
and from under it his clear eye flamed like a topaz.
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