Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1890-08-27
A NEW YORK DUDE.
A Genius Whom the World Gala
q Fool 80 -.

A short time ago, says a New York
correspondent in the San Francisco
Argonaut while sitting ut q tablo in
Cooney Island restaurant with tho ro-
doubtable B., best company to DO
found in town, our attention was ut.
tracted by tho entrance OF most Pc
ouliar looking man. Every ones alton
ton was attracted in the same direc.
ton. 1t was funny to see how the con-
tagion of amused curiosity spread from
table to table, till in the farthest cor
ner of the room people were craning
their necks and bullying their eyes to
have q look at the newcomer. Then.
after glance of arrested surprise, each
turned to his neighbor with some eiac-
ulation Of wonder on his lips. The
cause of the commotion was only
dude twould hardly be worth while
describing him, but a Western man,
who had lived in New York once, told
me that there was not \ genuine dude
west of the Mississippi, so tho type may
be odd enough to excuse the desorip-
ton.
u
young fellow, and tho room being
crowded they stood, for some moments,
in the doorway, looking rather aim
lessly about Then a waiter hailed
them over in our direction, and they
sat near US. The dude was perhaps
twenty-three or tour years of age, and
looked younger. He was tall, long
limbed, extremely thin. and walked
feebly. with chest followed, and his
chin stuck long way out of the high
est collar that ever encircled q neck.
He wore loose, light clothes, shoes of
the most amazing length and ending in
sharply-pointed toes, white-duck gait
ers, and carried a cane with bent-over
top. This he dragged behind him as
he walked in, as If too weak to lift it.
AS he entered he took off his hat, worn
back on his head like little boys, and
disclosed shining hair, brushed we'll
down on his forehead and parted up the
back and combed forward over his
ears. AS he read the carte, one could
study his face. 1t was perfectly vapid.
The forehead receded, like an anthro-
poid's, from the eyebrows. The chin
receded, like rodents, from the lower
lip. In profile, the head was like
triangle, with the tip of the nose for
the apex. On the overhanging upper
lip, there was mustache curled up at
the points, and the eyes, under straight
brows, were peculiarly dull and life
less They looked like the eyes of a
very old person, or birds when it
sleeps.
Settled in his chair, he stuck glass
in his eye and looked about, but without
any appearance Of interest. He seemed
listless and lifeless, the produce of an
exhausted race. His figure seemed to
fall together, as though the muscles of
his back had lost their power, and occa-
sionally, when his friend spoke to him,
he shot his long neck up out of his col
lar like swapping turtle. There were
but two things to be said in his favor:
he looked clean and he had beautiful
hands-the long-6ngered, loose-jointed,
supple hands, with languid movements,
which bespeak the artistic temperament
and, sometimes, that their possessor is
well-born. The people at the surround
ing tables stared at this creature as
though he had been Buffalo Bill or Mrs.
Langtry, and he seemed as YEARLY OBJ
livious of their attention as he was Of
every thing else.
Presently he met BIS glance, and
with a stately and absurdly affected air
bowed and then looked away. B.,
with much gravity, returned the salute,
then said in a low voice:
what would you take that fellow to
be?"
IAN egregious ass"
''That's what every one says and
thinks. What would you say if told
you he was exactly the contrary?"
THAT you were an ass YOURSELF
well. l know that fellow intimately,
went to school with him and then to
College,
And he bows to you as If he met you
last night at a ball"
That's his little way-his weakness.
I understand him and we get on per-
fectly. don't believe there are half-a-
dozen people in Now York, besides N.Y.
self, who understand or appreciate that
man. Do you know that he's very near
~ genius"
''He looks as if he might be. never
met but one genius in my life, and he
was one Of the most successfully, tri-
umphantly idiotic people that I ever
came in contact with"
"That fellow-his names Tom pkins-
isn't in the least idiotic. l think the
root of his eccentricities arises from the
fact that he's morbidly sensitive. He
was always little queer in his style,
and he has been guyed all his life. He's
used to it now; he doesn't mind. That
Indifference of his to the sensation he
creates is not in the least Affected, it's
perfectly genuine. He really doesn't
care or know what people say or think
of him. Half the time he doesn't see
them"
Are you going to try to make me be-
lieve that the man who has the facial
angle OF an ourang is visionary
dreamer?'
"No-he's not a dreamer; that's not
his type of mind. But fate has forced
him into sort Of isolation. AS said
before, he was always queer, silent and
morose. You can imagine how fellow
like that is treated at school, and after.