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Page 69
"Well, Tripp," said I, looking up at him rather impatiently, "how goes
it?" He was looking to-day more miserable, more cringing and haggard
and downtrodden than I had ever seen him. He was at that stage of
misery where he drew your pity so fully that you longed to kick him.
"Have you got a dollar?" asked Tripp, with his most fawning look and
his dog-like eyes that blinked in the narrow space between his high-
growing matted beard and his low-growing matted hair.
"I have," said I; and again I said, "I have," more loudly and
inhospitably, "and four besides. And I had hard work corkscrewing
them out of old Atkinson, I can tell you. And I drew them," I
continued, "to meet a want--a hiatus--a demand--a need--an exigency--a
requirement of exactly five dollars."
I was driven to emphasis by the premonition that I was to lose one of
the dollars on the spot.
"I don't want to borrow any," said Tripp, and I breathed again. "I
thought you'd like to get put onto a good story," he went on. "I've
got a rattling fine one for you. You ought to make it run a column at
least. It'll make a dandy if you work it up right. It'll probably
cost you a dollar or two to get the stuff. I don't want anything out
of it myself."
I became placated. The proposition showed that Tripp appreciated past
favors, although he did not return them. If he had been wise enough
to strike me for a quarter then he would have got it.
"What is the story ?" I asked, poising my pencil with a finely
calculated editorial air.
"I'll tell you," said Tripp. "It's a girl. A beauty. One of the
howlingest Amsden's Junes you ever saw. Rosebuds covered with dew-
violets in their mossy bed--and truck like that. She's lived on Long
Island twenty years and never saw New York City before. I ran against
her on Thirty-fourth Street. She'd just got in on the East River
ferry. I tell you, she's a beauty that would take the hydrogen out of
all the peroxides in the world. She stopped me on the street and
asked me where she could find George Brown. Asked me where she could
find George Brown in New York City! What do you think of that?
"I talked to her, and found that she was going to marry a young farmer
named Dodd--Hiram Dodd--next week. But it seems that George Brown
still holds the championship in her youthful fancy. George had
greased his cowhide boots some years ago, and came to the city to make
his fortune. But he forgot to remember to show up again at Greenburg,
and Hiram got in as second-best choice. But when it comes to the
scratch Ada--her name's Ada Lowery--saddles a nag and rides eight
miles to the railroad station and catches the 6.45 A.M. train for the
city. Looking for George, you know--you understand about women--
George wasn't there, so she wanted him.
"Well, you know, I couldn't leave her loose in Wolftown-on-the-Hudson.
I suppose she thought the first person she inquired of would say:
'George Brown ?--why, yes--lemme see--he's a short man with light-blue
eyes, ain't he? Oh yes--you'll find George on One Hundred and Twenty-
fifth Street, right next to the grocery. He's bill-clerk in a saddle-
and-harness store.' That's about how innocent and beautiful she is.
You know those little Long Island water-front villages like Greenburg-
-a couple of duck-farms for sport, and clams and about nine summer
visitors for industries. That's the kind of a place she comes from.
But, say--you ought to see her!
"What could I do? I don't know what money looks like in the morning.
And she'd paid her last cent of pocket-money for her railroad ticket
except a quarter, which she had squandered on gum-drops. She was
eating them out of a paper bag. I took her to a boarding-house on
Thirty-second Street where I used to live, and hocked her. She's in
soak for a dollar. That's old Mother McGinnis' price per day. I'll
show you the house."
"What words are these, Tripp?" said I. "I thought you said you had a
story. Every ferryboat that crosses the East River brings or takes
away girls from Long Island."
The premature lines on Tripp's face grew deeper. He frowned seriously
from his tangle of hair. He separated his hands and emphasized his
answer with one shaking forefinger.
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