But if one is insane, if one has inherited one's grandfather's
characteristics as idler, loafer, lounger, dreamer, lover or picaroon,
what then? Eh, one stays at home and tells it to the typewriter or, more
likely, one gets run down, chewed up and bespattered while darting across
State Street in quest of an invigorating vanilla phosphate.
* * * * *
Nevertheless--there's a word that speaks innate optimism, nevertheless,
there are things which do not change as logically as do ornaments. Men and
women, for instance. And although the town wears its mask of deplorable
sanity and though Sunnyside Avenue seems suavely reminiscent of Von
Bissing's troops goose-stepping through Belgium--there are men and women.
One naturally inquires, where? Quite so, where are there men and women in
the city? One sees crowds. But men and women are lost. One observes crowds
answering the advertisements. The advertisements say, come here, go there.
And one sees men and women devotedly bent upon rewarding the advertisers.
Again, nevertheless, there are other observations to make. There are the
taxicabs. Here in the taxicabs one may still observe men and women.
Villon's Paris, Shakespeare's London and vanished New York, these are
crowded into the taxicabs.
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