MAN ABOUT TOWN
by O. Henry
There were two or three things that I wanted to know. I do not care
about a mystery. So I began to inquire.
It took me two weeks to find out what women carry in dress suit cases.
And then I began to ask why a mattress is made in two pieces. This
serious query was at first received with suspicion because it sounded
like a conundrum. I was at last assured that its double form of
construction was designed to make lighter the burden of woman, who makes
up beds. I was so foolish as to persist, begging to know why, then, they
were not made in two equal pieces; whereupon I was shunned.
The third draught that I craved from the fount of knowledge was
enlightenment concerning the character known as A Man About Town. He was
more vague in my mind than a type should be. We must have a concrete
idea of anything, even if it be an imaginary idea, before we can
comprehend it. Now, I have a mental picture of John Doe that is as clear
as a steel engraving. His eyes are weak blue; he wears a brown vest
and a shiny black serge coat. He stands always in the sunshine chewing
something; and he keeps half-shutting his pocket knife and opening it
again with his thumb. And, if the Man Higher Up is ever found, take
my assurance for it, he will be a large, pale man with blue wristlets
showing under his cuffs, and he will be sitting to have his shoes
polished within sound of a bowling alley, and there will be somewhere
about him turquoises.
But the canvas of my imagination, when it came to limning the Man About
Town, was blank. I fancied that he bad a detachable sneer (like the
smile of the Cheshire cat) and attached cuffs; and that was all.
Whereupon I asked a newspaper reporter about him.
"Why," said he, "a 'Man About Town' something between a 'rounder' and
a 'clubman.' He isn't exactly--well, he fits in between Mrs. Fish's
receptions and private boxing bouts. He doesn't--well, he doesn't belong
either to the Lotos Club or to the Jerry McGeogheghan Galvanised Iron
Workers' Apprentices' Left Hook Chowder Association. I don't exactly
know how to describe him to you. You'll see him everywhere there's
anything doing. Yes, I suppose he's a type. Dress clothes every evening;
knows the ropes; calls every policeman and waiter in town by their first
names. No; he never travels with the hydrogen derivatives. You generally
see him alone or with another man."
My friend the reporter left me, and I wandered further afield. By this
time the 3126 electric lights on the Rialto were alight. People passed,
but they held me not. Paphian eyes rayed upon me, and left me unscathed.
Diners, heimgangers, shop-girls, confidence men, panhandlers, actors,
highwaymen, millionaires and outlanders hurried, skipped, strolled,
sneaked, swaggered and scurried by me; but I took no note of them. I
knew them all; I had read their hearts; they had served. I wanted my Man
About Town. He was a type, and to drop him would be an error--a
typograph--but no! let us continue.
Let us continue with a moral digression. To see a family reading the
Sunday paper gratifies. The sections have been separated. Papa is
earnestly scanning the page that pictures the young lady exercising
before an open window, and bending--but there, there! Mamma is
interested in trying to guess the missing letters in the word N_w Yo_k.
The oldest girls are eagerly perusing the financial reports, for a
certain young man remarked last Sunday night that he had taken a flyer
in Q., X. & Z. Willie, the eighteen-year-old son, who attends the New
York public school, is absorbed in the weekly article describing how to
make over an old skirt, for he hopes to take a prize in sewing on
graduation day.
Grandma is holding to the comic supplement with a two-hours' grip; and
little Tottie, the baby, is rocking along the best she can with the real
estate transfers. This view is intended to be reassuring, for it is
desirable that a few lines of this story be skipped. For it introduces
strong drink.
I went into a cafe to--and while it was being mixed I asked the man
who grabs up your hot Scotch spoon as soon as you lay it down what
he understood by the term, epithet, description, designation,
characterisation or appellation, viz.: a "Man About Town."
"Why," said he, carefully, "it means a fly guy that's wise to the
all-night push--see? It's a hot sport that you can't bump to the rail
anywhere between the Flatirons--see? I guess that's about what it
means."
I thanked him and departed.
On the sidewalk a Salvation lassie shook her contribution receptacle
gently against my waistcoat pocket.
"Would you mind telling me," I asked her, "if you ever meet with the
character commonly denominated as 'A Man About Town' during your daily
wanderings?"
"I think I know whom you mean," she answered, with a gentle smile. "We
see them in the same places night after night. They are the devil's body
guard, and if the soldiers of any army are as faithful as they are,
their commanders are well served. We go among them, diverting a few
pennies from their wickedness to the Lord's service."
She shook the box again and I dropped a dime into it.
In front of a glittering hotel a friend of mine, a critic, was climbing
from a cab. He seemed at leisure; and I put my question to him. He
answered me conscientiously, as I was sure he would.
"There is a type of 'Man About Town' in New York," he answered. "The
term is quite familiar to me, but I don't think I was ever called upon
to define the character before. It would be difficult to point you out
an exact specimen. I would say, offhand, that it is a man who had a
hopeless case of the peculiar New York disease of wanting to see and
know. At 6 o'clock each day life begins with him. He follows rigidly the
conventions of dress and manners; but in the business of poking his nose
into places where he does not belong he could give pointers to a civet
cat or a jackdaw. He is the man who has chased Bohemia about the town
from rathskeller to roof garden and from Hester street to Harlem until
you can't find a place in the city where they don't cut their spaghetti
with a knife. Your 'Man About Town' has done that. He is always on the
scent of something new. He is curiosity, impudence and omnipresence.
Hansoms were made for him, and gold-banded cigars; and the curse of
music at dinner. There are not so many of him; but his minority report
is adopted everywhere.
"I'm glad you brought up the subject; I've felt the influence of this
nocturnal blight upon our city, but I never thought to analyse it
before. I can see now that your 'Man About Town' should have been
classified long ago. In his wake spring up wine agents and cloak models;
and the orchestra plays 'Let's All Go Up to Maud's' for him, by request,
instead of Haendel. He makes his rounds every evening; while you and I
see the elephant once a week. When the cigar store is raided, he winks
at the officer, familiar with his ground, and walks away immune, while
you and I search among the Presidents for names, and among the stars for
addresses to give the desk sergeant."
My friend, the critic, paused to acquire breath for fresh eloquence.
I seized my advantage.
"You have classified him," I cried with joy. "You have painted his
portrait in the gallery of city types. But I must meet one face to face.
I must study the Man About Town at first hand. Where shall I find him?
How shall I know him?"
Without seeming to hear me, the critic went on. And his cab-driver was
waiting for his fare, too.
"He is the sublimated essence of Butt-in; the refined, intrinsic extract
of Rubber; the concentrated, purified, irrefutable, unavoidable spirit
of Curiosity and Inquisitiveness. A new sensation is the breath in his
nostrils; when his experience is exhausted he explores new fields with
the indefatigability of a--"
"Excuse me," I interrupted, "but can you produce one of this type? It is
a new thing to me. I must study it. I will search the town over until I
find one. Its habitat must be here on Broadway."
"I am about to dine here," said my friend. "Come inside, and if there is
a Man About Town present I will point him out to you. I know most of the
regular patrons here."
"I am not dining yet," I said to him. "You will excuse me. I am going to
find my Man About Town this night if I have to rake New York from the
Battery to Little Coney Island."
I left the hotel and walked down Broadway. The pursuit of my type gave a
pleasant savour of life and interest to the air I breathed. I was glad
to be in a city so great, so complex and diversified. Leisurely and
with something of an air I strolled along with my heart expanding at
the thought that I was a citizen of great Gotham, a sharer in its
magnificence and pleasures, a partaker in its glory and prestige.
I turned to cross the street. I heard something buzz like a bee, and
then I took a long, pleasant ride with Santos-Dumont.
When I opened my eyes I remembered a smell of gasoline, and I said
aloud: "Hasn't it passed yet?"
A hospital nurse laid a hand that was not particularly soft upon my brow
that was not at all fevered. A young doctor came along, grinned, and
handed me a morning newspaper.
"Want to see how it happened?" he asked cheerily. I read the article.
Its headlines began where I heard the buzzing leave off the night
before. It closed with these lines:
"--Bellevue Hospital, where it was said that his injuries were not
serious. He appeared to be a typical Man About Town."
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