Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/39

 "collar on the beer," the rat-trap for "boobs" and "hicks" and "come-ons," the coal-chute for papa's money. No doubt his prejudice had been sown and nurtured by the Sunday newspapers. Dutifully each Sunday they recorded the Broadway exploits of this torn-fool or that. The Great White Way: waste, extravagance, wild-oats, cold-blood and old-blood and lack-mercy. On the other hand, he admired the physical beauty of it; at night he knew it had no counterpart in all the wide world.

"Some old highway," he murmured, aloud, "but it 'll never dig a nickel out of my jeans."

He wandered on, peering into this window and that, full of lively interest in everything he saw. By and by he summoned a carpet. It carried his spirit in one direction, while his feet led him in another, toward his destiny. Without realizing it, he turned off Broadway and crossed over to Fifth Avenue. Here the fashionable curio-shops attracted him. There were art-galleries, too, and windows full of strange-looking carpets and rugs. Presently he paused before a window which had an art-gallery air, but wasn't. Printers' ink instead of oil ruled. There were great ships going down to sea, tropical isles, the Nile country, India, China, Japan; Arabs, camels, elephants, rickshaws, and bewildering temples. He looked up at the sign overhead.

"Well, what do you know about that?" he murmured. "Little ol' Thomas Cook and Willie Grogan! Well, say!"