Strictly Business: More Stories of the Four Million

Коллекция текстов · humor

I — Strictly Business (1)
I suppose you know all about the stage and stage people. You’ve been touched with and by actors, and you read the newspaper criticisms and…
I — Strictly Business (2)
I tell you these things to assure you, even if you can’t believe it, that many, very many of the stage people are workers with abiding ambi…
II — The Gold That Glittered
A story with a moral appended is like the bill of a mosquito. It bores you, and then injects a stinging drop to irritate your conscience. T…
III — Babes in the Jungle
Montague Silver, the finest street man and art grafter in the West, says to me once in Little Rock: “If you ever lose your mind, Billy, and…
IV — The Day Resurgent
I can see the artist bite the end of his pencil and frown when it comes to drawing his Easter picture; for his legitimate pictorial concept…
V — The Fifth Wheel (1)
The ranks of the Bed Line moved closer together; for it was cold. They were alluvial deposit of the stream of life lodged in the delta of F…
V — The Fifth Wheel (2)
“Annie,” said Thoms solicitously, “you’re giving me the wheels now. If I had a chariot I’d have gone to bed in it long ago. And without any…
VI — The Poet and the Peasant
The other day a poet friend of mine, who has lived in close communion with nature all his life, wrote a poem and took it to an editor. It w…
VII — The Robe of Peace
Mysteries follow one another so closely in a great city that the reading public and the friends of Johnny Bellchambers have ceased to marve…
VIII — The Girl and the Graft
The other day I ran across my old friend Ferguson Pogue. Pogue is a conscientious grafter of the highest type. His headquarters is the West…
IX — The Call of the Tame
When the inauguration was accomplished—the proceedings were made smooth by the presence of the Rough Riders—it is well known that a herd of…
X — The Unknown Quantity
The poet Longfellow—or was it Confucius, the inventor of wisdom?—remarked: “Life is real, life is earnest; And things are not what they see…
XI — The Thing’s the Play
Being acquainted with a newspaper reporter who had a couple of free passes, I got to see the performance a few nights ago at one of the pop…
XII — A Ramble in Aphasia (1)
My wife and I parted on that morning in precisely our usual manner. She left her second cup of tea to follow me to the front door. There sh…
XII — A Ramble in Aphasia (2)
“Go to your room for a while,” I heard him say. “I will remain and talk with him. His mind? No, I think not—only a portion of the brain. Ye…
XIII — A Municipal Report (1)
The cities are full of pride, Challenging each to each— This from her mountainside, That from her burthened beach. R. KIPLING. Fancy a nove…
XIII — A Municipal Report (2)
“Your town,” I said, as I began to make ready to depart (which is the time for smooth generalities), “seems to be a quiet, sedate place. A…
XIV — Psyche and the Pskyscraper
If you are a philosopher you can do this thing: you can go to the top of a high building, look down upon your fellow-men 300 feet below, an…
XV — A Bird of Bagdad
Without a doubt much of the spirit and genius of the Caliph Harun Al Rashid descended to the Margrave August Michael von Paulsen Quigg. Qui…
XVI — Compliments of the Season
There are no more Christmas stories to write. Fiction is exhausted; and newspaper items, the next best, are manufactured by clever young jo…
XVII — A Night in New Arabia (1)
The great city of Bagdad-on-the-Subway is caliph-ridden. Its palaces, bazaars, khans, and byways are thronged with Al Rashids in divers dis…
XVII — A Night in New Arabia (2)
“And sleep, too, you bet,” said Mr. McLeod. “Yes, I believe if I have a delivery to make on the West Side this afternoon I’ll look in at a…
XVIII — The Girl and the Habit
HABIT—a tendency or aptitude acquired by custom or frequent repetition. The critics have assailed every source of inspiration save one. To…
XIX — Proof of the Pudding
Spring winked a vitreous optic at Editor Westbrook of the Minerva Magazine, and deflected him from his course. He had lunched in his favori…
XX — Past One at Rooney’s (1)
Only on the lower East Side of New York do the houses of Capulet and Montagu survive. There they do not fight by the book of arithmetic. If…
XX — Past One at Rooney’s (2)
The guests crowded in confusion to the rear. Rooney’s lieutenant swung open a panel in the wall, overlooking the back yard, revealing a lad…
XXI — The Venturers (1)
Let the story wreck itself on the spreading rails of the Non Sequitur Limited, if it will; first you must take your seat in the observation…
XXI — The Venturers (2)
“And did you find what you wanted while you were abroad?” “What I wanted?” said Ives. “Yes. You know you were always queer. Even as a boy y…
XXII — The Duel
The gods, lying beside their nectar on ’Lympus and peeping over the edge of the cliff, perceive a difference in cities. Although it would s…
XXIII — “What You Want”
Night had fallen on that great and beautiful city known as Bagdad-on-the-Subway. And with the night came the enchanted glamour that belongs…