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Removals: :: Home :: Domestic Removals :: Commercial Removals :: Storage :: Online Quote :: Contact Welcometo the proprietors of another local haulage firm, Henry's Removals, who were looking to expand. Paul and Sue Henry became the Choose from a variety of the UK's favourite budget removal specialists. Great deals and all the latest offers. All counties and countries, secure storage available. Find it all at TheHighStreetWeb. Reliable, low-cost service covering London to the UK and all Europe. Price includes a driver who will also lift and load for you. Just relax and let us take care of everything.
... 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 removals 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 removals 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 ThirdPart500_600 man who had a
hopeless case of the peculiar New York removals 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 Hфndel. 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 removals 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 removals first hand. Where ThirdPart500_600 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 removals 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 removals great, so complex removals 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 removals glory and prestige.
I turned to cross the street. I heard something buzz like a bee, removals 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 removals 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 injuri ... |
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