Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1909-08-05
conYaIehr 1907 = rHs eoses -nIaaLLL CO.

Presumably he saw nothing of inter
est to him. 1t was not particularly
interesting block, for that matter,
though somewhat typical Of the neigh
borhood. The north side was lined
with five-story fiat buildings, their
dingy-red brick facades regularly
broken by equally dingy brownstone
stoops, as to the ground floor, by open
windows as to those above. The south
side was mostly taken up by a tow
ering white apartment hotel with an
ostentatious entrance; against one of
whose polished stone pillars the short
and thick-set man was lounging.
The sidewalks, north and south,
swarmed with children of assorted
ages, playing with the ferocious en-
ergy characteristic of the young of
Harlem; their blood-curdling cries and
premature Fourth-of-July fireworks
created an appalling din, to which,
however. the more mature denizens
had apparently become callous, through
long endurance.
Beyond the party-colored lights of a
drug store window on Seventh avenue,
the electric arcs were casting a sickly
radiance upon the dusty leaves of the
tree-lined drive. The avenue itself
was crowded with motor cars and
horse-drawn pleasure vehicles, mostly
bound uptown, their occupants seeking
the cooler airs and wider spaces to be
found beyond the Harlem river and
along the Speedway. A few blocks to
tie west Cathedral heights bulked like
a great wall, wrapped in purple shad-
ows, its jagged contour stark against
an evening sky of suave old rose.
The short and thick-set body, how
ever, seemed to have no particular APP
probation of the beauties of nature as
exhibited by West One Hundred and
Eighteenth street on summers even
ing. If anything, he could apparently
have desired a cooling breeze; for,
after q moments doubtful considera-
ton, he unbuttoned his waistcoat and
hoaved a sigh of relief.
Then, carefully shifting the butt of
a dead cigar from one corner of his
mouth to the other, where it was al
most hidden by the jutting thatch of
his black mustache, and drawing down
over his eyessthe brim of a rusty plug
hat, he thrust fat hands into the peck
cts Of his shabby trousers and lounged
against the polished pillar even more
energetically than before, If that were
possible An unromantic, apathetic
figure. fitting so naturally into his sur
roundings as to demand no second look
even from the most observant; yet one
seeming to possess magnetic attrac-
>tion for the eyes of the hallboy of the
apartment hotel (who, acquainted by
sight and hearsay with the stout gen.
tleman's identity and calling, bent
upon him steadfast and adoring re.
gard, as well as for the policeman
who lorded it on the st. Nicholas ave-
nue. corner, in front of the real estate
office, and who from time to time
shifted his contemplation from the in
finite spaces of the heavens, the better
to exchange furtive nod with the
idler in the hotel doorway.
Presently-at no great lapse of time
after the short and thick-set man had
slowed away his watch-out of the
thronged sidewalks of Seventh avenue
a man appeared, walking west on the
north side of the street and reviewing
carelessly the numbers on the illumin.
ated fan!ights; tall man, dressed all
In gray, and swinging thin walking
stick
The short, thick-set person assumed
mien OF ne intense abstraction
than FER.
The tall man IN gray paused indefi-
citalv before the hrowustnne stnap of