The big town - Ritchey - (1)

Well, I was just getting used to the Baldwin and making a few friends round there when Ella suddenly happened to remember that it was Griffin who had recommended it. So one day, wile Kate was down to the chiropodist’s, Ella says it was time for us to move and she had made up her mind to find an apartment somewheres.
    “We could get along with six rooms,” she said. “All as I ask is for it to be a new building and on some good street, some street where the real people lives.”
    “You mean Fifth Avenue,” said I.
    “Oh, no,” she says. “That’s way over our head. But we’d ought to be able to find something, say, on Riverside Drive.”
    “A six room apartment,” I says, “in a new building on Riverside Drive? What was you expecting to pay?”
    “Well,” she said, “you remember that time I and Kate visited the Kitchells in Chi? They had a dandy apartment on Sheridan Road, six rooms and brand new. It cost them seventy-five dollars a month. And Sheridan Road is Chicago’s Riverside Drive.”
    “Oh, no,” I says. “Chicago’s Riverside Drive is Canal Street. But listen: Didn’t the Kitchells have their own furniture?”
    “Sure they did,” said Ella.
    “And are you intending to furnish us all over complete?” I asked her.
    “Of course not,” she says. “I expect to get a furnished apartment. But that don’t only make about twenty-five dollars a month difference.”
    “Listen,” I said: “It was six years ago that you visited the Kitchells; beside which, that was Chi and this is the Big Town. If you find a six room furnished apartment for a hundred dollars in New York City to-day, we’ll be on Pell Street in Chinatown, and maybe Katie can marry into a laundry or a joss house.”
    “Well,” said the wife, “even if we have to go to $150 a month for a place on the Drive, remember half of it’s my money and half of it’s Kate’s, and none of it’s yours.”
    “You’re certainly letter perfect in that speech,” I says.
    “And further and more,” said Ella, “you remember what I told you the other day. Wile one reason we moved to New York was to see Life, the main idear was to give Kate a chance to meet real men. So every nickel we spend making ourself look good is just an investment.”
    “I’d rather feel good than look good,” I says, “and I hate to see us spending so much money on a place to live that they won’t be nothing left to live on. For three or four hundred a month you might get a joint on the Drive with a bed and two chairs, but I can’t drink furniture.”
    “This trip wasn’t planned as no spree for you,” says Ella. “On the other hand, I believe Sis would stand a whole lot better show of landing the right kind of a man if the rumor was to get out that her brother-in-law stayed sober once in a wile.”
    “Well,” I said, “I don’t think my liberal attitude on the drink question affected the results of our deal in Wall Street. That investment would of turned out just as good whether I was a teetotaler or a lush.”
    “Listen,” she says: “The next time you mention ancient history like that, I’ll make a little investment in a lawyer. But what’s the use of arguing? I and Kate has made up our mind to do things our own way with our own money, and to-day we’re going up on the Drive with a real estate man. We won’t pay no more than we can afford. All as we want is a place that’s good enough and big enough for Sis to entertain her gentleman callers in it, and she certainly can’t do that in this hotel.”
    “Well,” I says, “all her gentleman callers that’s been around here in the last month, she could entertain them in one bunch in a telephone booth.”
    “The reason she’s been let alone so far,” says the Mrs., “is because I won’t allow her to meet the kind of men that stays at hotels. You never know who they are.”
    “Why not?” I said. “They’ve all got to register their name when they come in, which is more than you can say for people that lives in $100 apartments on Riverside Drive.”
    Well, my arguments went so good that for the next three days the two gals was on a home-seekers’ excursion and I had to spend my time learning the eastern intercollegiate kelly pool rules up to Doyle’s. I win about seventy-five dollars.
    When the ladies come home the first two nights they was all wore out and singing the landlord blues, but on the third afternoon they busted in all smiles.
    “We’ve found one,” says Ella. “Six rooms, too.”
    “Where at?” I asked her.
    “Just where we wanted it,” she says. “On the Drive. And it fronts right on the Hudson.”
    “No!” I said. “I thought they built them all facing the other way.”
    “It almost seems,” said Katie, “like you could reach out and touch New Jersey.”
    “It’s what you might call a near beer apartment,” I says.
    “And it’s almost across the street from Grant’s Tomb,” says Ella.
    “How many rooms has he got?” I says.
    “We was pretty lucky,” said Ella. “The people that had it was forced to go south for the man’s health. He’s a kind of a cripple. And they decided to sublet it furnished. So we got a bargain.”
    “Come on,” I says. “What price?”
    “Well,” she says, “they don’t talk prices by the month in New York. They give you the price by the year. So it sounds a lot more than it really is. We got it for $4,000.”
    “Sweet patootie!” I said. “That’s only half your income.”
    “Well, what of it?” says Ella. “It won’t only be for about a year and it’s in the nicest kind of a neighborhood and we can’t meet nothing only the best kind of people. You know what I told you.”
    And she give me a sly wink.
    Well, it seems like they had signed up a year’s lease and paid a month’s rent in advance, so what was they left for me to say? All I done was make the remark that I didn’t see how we was going to come even close to a trial balance.
    “Why not?” said Katie. “With our rent paid we can get along easy on $4,000 a year if we economize.”
    “Yes,” I said. “You’ll economize just like the rest of the Riverside Drivers, with a couple of servants and a car and four or five new evening dresses a month. By the end of six months the bank’ll be figuring our account in marks.”
    “What do you mean ‘our’ account?” says Ella.
    “But speaking about a car,” said Katie, “do you suppose we could get a good one cheap?”
    “Certainly,” I said. “They’re giving away the good ones for four double coupons.”
    “But I mean an inexpensive one,” says Kate.
    “You can’t live on the River and ride in a flivver,” I said. “Besides, the buses limp right by the door.”
    “Oh, I love the buses!” said Ella.
    “Wait till you see the place,” says Katie to me. “You’ll go simply wild! They’s a colored boy in uniform to open the door and they’s two elevators.”
    “How high do we go?” I said.
    “We’re on the sixth floor,” says Katie.
    “I should think we could get that far in one elevator,” I says.
    “What was it the real estate man told us?” said Ella. “Oh, yes, he said the sixth floor was the floor everybody tried to get on.”
    “It’s a wonder he didn’t knock it,” I said.
    Well, we was to have immediate possession, so the next morning we checked out of this joint and swooped up on the Drive. The colored boy, who I nicknamed George, helped us up with the wardrobe. Ella had the key and inside of fifteen minutes she’d found it.
    We hadn’t no sooner than made our entree into our new home when I knew what ailed the previous tenant. He’d crippled himself stumbling over the furniture. The living room was big enough to stage the high hurdles, and that’s what was in it, only they’d planted them every two feet apart. If a stew with the blind staggers had of walked in there in the dark, the folks on the floor below would of thought he’d knocked the head pin for a goal.
    “Come across the room,” said Ella, “and look at the view.”
    “I guess I can get there in four downs,” I said, “but you better have a substitute warming up.”
    “Well,” she says, when I’d finally fell acrost the last white chalk mark, “what do you think of it?”
    “It’s a damn pretty view,” I says, “but I’ve often seen the same view from the top of a bus for a thin dime.”
    Well, they showed me over the whole joint and it did look O. K., but not $4,000 worth. The best thing in the place was a half full bottle of rye in the kitchen that the cripple hadn’t gone south with. I did.
    We got there at eleven o’clock in the morning, but at three P. M. the gals was still hanging up their Follies costumes, so I beat it out and over to Broadway and got myself a plate of pea soup. When I come back, Ella and Katie was laying down exhausted. Finally I told Ella that I was going to move back to the hotel unless they served meals in this dump, so her and Kate got up and went marketing. Well, when you move from Indiana to the Big Town, of course you can’t be expected to do your own cooking, so what we had that night was from the delicatessen, and for the next four days we lived on dill pickles with dill pickles.
    “Listen,” I finally says: “The only reason I consented to leave the hotel was in the hopes I could get a real home cook meal once in a wile and if I don’t get a real home cook meal once in a wile, I leave this dive.”
    “Have a little bit of patience,” says Ella. “I advertised in the paper for a cook the day before we come here, the day we rented this apartment. And I offered eight dollars a week.”
    “How many replies did you get?” I asked her.
    “Well,” she said, “I haven’t got none so far, but it’s probably too soon to expect any.”
    “What did you advertise in, the world almanac?” I says.
    “No, sir,” she says. “I advertised in the two biggest New York papers, the ones the real estate man recommended.”
    “Listen,” I said: “Where do you think you’re at, in Niles, Michigan? If you get a cook here for eight dollars a week, it’ll be a one-armed leper that hasn’t yet reached her teens.”
    “What would you do, then?” she asked me.
    “I’d write to an employment agency,” I says, “and I’d tell them we’ll pay good wages.”
    So she done that and in three days the phone rung and the agency said they had one prospect on hand and did we want her to come out and see us. So Ella said we did and out come a colleen for an interview. She asked how much we was willing to pay.
    “Well,” said Ella, “I’d go as high as twelve dollars. Or I’d make it fifteen if you done the washing.”
    Kathleen Mavourneen turned her native color.
    “Well,” I said, “how much do you want?”
    “I’ll work for ninety dollars a month,” she said, only I can’t get the brogue. “That’s for the cookin’ only. No washin’. And I would have to have a room with a bath and all day Thursdays and Sunday evenin’s off.”
    “Nothing doing,” said Ella, and the colleen started for the door.
    “Wait a minute,” I says. “Listen: Is that what you gals is getting in New York?”
    “We’re a spalpeen if we ain’t,” says the colleen bawn.
    Well, I was desperate, so I called the wife to one side and says: “For heaven’s sakes, take her on a month’s trial. I’ll pay the most of it with a little piece of money I picked up last week down to Doyle’s. I’d rather do that than get dill pickled for a goal.”
    “Could you come right away?” Ella asked her.
    “Not for a couple days,” says Kathleen.
    “It’s off, then,” I said. “You cook our supper to-night or go back to Greece.”
    “Well,” she says, “I guess I could make it if I hurried.”
    So she went away and come back with her suitcase, and she cooked our supper that night. And Oh darlint!
    Well, Beautiful Katie still had the automobile bug and it wasn’t none of my business to steer her off of it and pretty near every day she would go down to the “row” and look them over. But every night she’d come home whistling a dirge.
    “I guess I’ve seen them all,” she’d say, “but they’re too expensive or else they look like they wasn’t.”
    But one time we was all coming home in a taxi from a show and come up Broadway and all of a sudden she yelled for the driver to stop.
    “That’s a new one in that window,” she says, “and one I never see before.”
    Well, the dive was closed at the time and we couldn’t get in, but she insisted on going down there the first thing in the morning and I and Ella must go along. The car was a brand new model Bam Eight.
    “How much?” I asked him.
    “Four thousand,” he says.
    “When could I get one?” says Katie.
    “I don’t know,” said the salesman.
    “What do you mean?” I asked him. “Haven’t they made none of them?”
    “I don’t know,” says the salesman. “This is the only one we got.”
    “Has anybody ever rode in one?” I says.
    “I don’t know,” said the guy.
    So I asked him what made it worth four thousand.
    “Well,” he says, “what made this lady want one?”
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    “Could I have this one that’s on the floor?” says Katie.
    “I don’t know,” said the salesman.
    “Well, when do you think I could get one?” says Katie.
    “We can’t promise no deliveries,” says the salesman.
    Well, that kind of fretted me, so I asked him if they wasn’t a salesman we could talk to.
    “You’re talking to one,” he said.
    “Yes, I know,” said I. “But I used to be a kind of a salesman myself, and when I was trying to sell things, I didn’t try and not sell them.”
    “Yes,” he says, “but you wasn’t selling automobiles in New York in 1920. Listen,” he says: “I’ll be frank with you. We got the New York agency for this car and was glad to get it because it sells for four thousand and anything that sells that high, why the people will eat up, even if it’s a pearl-handle ketchup bottle. If we ever do happen to get a consignment of these cars, they’ll sell like oil stock. The last word we got from the factory was that they’d send us three cars next September. So that means we’ll get two cars a year from next October and if we can spare either of them, you can have one.”
    So then he begin to yawn and I said, “Come on, girls,” and we got a taxi and beat it home. And I wouldn’t of said nothing about it, only if Katie had of been able to buy her Bam, what come off might of never came off.
    It wasn’t only two nights later when Ella come in from shopping all excited. “Well,” she said, “talk about experiences! I just had a ride home and it wasn’t in a street car and it wasn’t in a taxi and it wasn’t on the subway and it wasn’t on a bus.”
    “Let’s play charades,” said I.
    “Tell us, Sis,” says Katie.
    “Well,” said the wife, “I was down on Fifth Avenue, waiting for a bus, and all of a sudden a big limousine drew up to the curb with a livery chauffeur, and a man got out of the back seat and took off his hat and asked if he couldn’t see me home. And of course I didn’t pay no attention to him.”