Page:The New Yorker 0001 1925-02-21.pdf/33

THE NEW YORKER

Chauncey McKeever and Neville Highan employ the only two monocles on the Exchange.

One reason for the mid-winter selling is Palm Beach. Big Business is making this season more of a definitely holiday period than any other time of year.

John Stewart has the loudest voice on the Exchange—a bull-like roar. Time was when Sid Schuyler’s falsetto yell was his fortune. It traveled to every corner of the room, and traders used him when they wanted to start something moving in stocks.

J. P. Morgan pulled a new one when he took in several “assistant partners.” It is doubtful, though, whether “assistant partners” ever become commonplaces on the Street, for Morgan’s concern is unique, containing fourteen partners—more than any other firm with an Exchange membership.

“Que barbaridad,” was the way Zuloaga expressed it when he visited the Exchange, which is not uncomplimentary, if you understand your Spanish. New York, however, didn’t put foreign issues up a complimentary eighth in his honor, as the Paris Bourse did long ago when he had just forsaken the bull ring and still wore the professional capa. —

Something like that sentence appears in at least every other novel I read. What I am keen to ask Cyril if I ever meet him in the flesh instead of in the fiction is how and why he selected a cigarette. Still he may have had his reasons such as:
 * 1) He carried twelve brands in that case.
 * 2) He wanted to save the monogrammed ones to be smoked on occasion.
 * 3) He was careful to avoid one leaving an ash which would betray him to the Sherlock Holmes-like detective on his trail.
 * 4) He stocked two kinds, one to smoke himself, one to give friends.
 * 5) He supplied many lady friends and was glad to have enough cigarettes left to choose between.
 * 6) As he picked out cigarettes, he recited blithely, “She loves me, she loves me not.”

Whatever the reason the dear fellow had, when I write my novel, which will be one of those rough, realism things, the hero will act this way:

“Digging into his pants’ pocket, Cy produced a plug and selected a chaw.” —