Man About Town
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✒ Author | O. Henry |
📖 Pages | 8 |
⏰ Reading time | 20 minutes |
💡 Originally published | 1905 |
🌏 Original language | English |
📌 Types | Stories , Stories |
📌 Genres | Realism, Social, Ironic, Realism, Social, Ironic |
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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 polisbed 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."
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Download the free e-book by O. Henry, «Man About Town» , in English. You can also print the text of the book. For this, the PDF and DOC formats are suitable.
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