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Page 16
"Oh, I know what Chicago is," interposed the New Yorker. "Have you been
up Fifth Avenue to see the magnificent residences of our mil --"
"Seen 'em all. You ought to know Reub Stegall, the assessor of Topaz.
When old man Tilbury, that owns the only two-story house in town, tried to
swear his taxes from $6,000 down to $450.75, Reub buckled on his
forty-five and went down to see --"
"Yes, yes, but speaking of our great city -- one of its greatest features
is our superb police department. There is no body of men in the world
that can equal it for --"
"That waiter gets around like a Langley flying machine," remarked the man
from Topaz City, thirstily. "We've got men in our town, too, worth
$400,000. There's old Bill Withers and Colonel Metcalf and --"
"Have you seen Broadway at night?" asked the New Yorker, courteously.
"There are few streets in the world that can compare with it. When the
electrics are shining and the pavements are alive with two hurrying
streams of elegantly clothed men and beautiful women attired in the
costliest costumes that wind in and out in a close maze of expensively --"
"Never knew but one case in Topaz City," said the man from the West. "Jim
Bailey, our mayor, had his watch and chain and $235 in cash taken from his
pocket while --"
"That's another matter," said the New Yorker. "While you are in our city
you should avail yourself of every opportunity to see its wonders. Our
rapid transit system --"
"If you was out in Topaz," broke in the man from there, "I could show you
a whole cemetery full of people that got killed accidentally. Talking
about mangling folks up! why, when Berry Rogers turned loose that old
double-barrelled shot-gun of his loaded 'with slugs at anybody --"
"Here, waiter!" called the New Yorker. "Two more of the same. It is
acknowledged by every one that our city is the centre of art, and
literature, and learning. Take, for instance, our after-dinner speakers.
Where else in the country would you find such wit and eloquence as emanate
from Depew and Ford, and --"
"If you take the papers," interrupted the Westerner, "you must have read
of Pete Webster's daughter. The Websters live two blocks north of the
court-house in Topaz City. Miss Tillie Webster, she slept forty days and
nights without waking up. The doctors said that --"
"Pass the matches, please," said the New Yorker. "Have you observed the
expedition with which new buildings are being run up in New York?
Improved inventions in steel framework and --"
"I noticed," said the Nevadian, "that the statistics of Topaz City showed
only one carpenter crushed by falling timbers last year and he was caught
in a cyclone."
"They abuse our sky line," continued the New Yorker, "and it is likely
that we are not yet artistic in the construction of our buildings. But I
can safely assert that we lead in pictorial and decorative art. In some
of our houses can be found masterpieces in the way of paintings and
sculpture. One who has the entree to our best galleries will find --"
"Back up," exclaimed the man from Topaz City. "There was a game last
month in our town in which $90,000 changed hands on a pair of --"
"Ta-romt-tara!" went the orchestra. The stage curtain, blushing pink at
the name "Asbestos" inscribed upon it, came down with a slow midsummer
movement. The audience trickled leisurely down the elevator and stairs.
On the sidewalk below, the New Yorker and the man from Topaz City shook
hands with alcoholic gravity. The elevated crashed raucously, surface
cars hummed and clanged, cabmen swore, newsboys shrieked, wheels clattered
ear-piercingly. The New Yorker conceived a happy thought, with which he
aspired to clinch the pre-eminence of his city.
"You must admit," said he, "that in the way of noise New York is far ahead
of any other --"
"Back to the everglades!" said the man from Topaz City. "In 1900, when
Sousa's band and the repeating candidate were in our town you couldn't --"
The rattle of an express wagon drowned the rest of the words.
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