AT SHANDY'S
On a late-summer evening in New York the atmosphere surrounding a certain corner table at Shandy's cheap restaurant in Fourteenth Street was stirred by a sense of excitement.
The corner table in question was the favourite meeting place of a group of young men of the G.Selden type, who usually took possession of it at dinner time--having decided that Shandy's supplied more decent food for fifty cents, or even for twenty-five, than was to be found at other places of its order.
Shandy's was "about all right," they said to each other, and patronised it accordingly, three or four of them generally dining together, with a friendly and adroit manipulation of "portions"and "half portions" which enabled them to add variety to their bill of fare.
The street outside was lighted, the tide of passers-by was less full and more leisurely in its movements than it was during the seething, working hours of daylight, but the electric cars swung past each other with whiz and clang of bell almost unceasingly, their sound being swelled, at short intervals, by the roar and rumbling rattle of the trains dashing by on the elevated railroad.This, however, to the frequenters of Shandy's, was the usual accompaniment of every-day New York life and was regarded as a rather cheerful sort of thing.
This evening the four claimants of the favourite corner table had met together earlier than usual.Jem Belter, who "hammered" a typewriter at Schwab's Brewery, Tom Wetherbee, who was "in a downtown office," Bert Johnson, who was "out for the Delkoff," and Nick Baumgarten, who having for some time "beaten" certain streets as assistant salesman for the same illustrious machine, had been recently elevated to a "territory" of his own, and was therefore in high spirits.
"Say!" he said."Let's give him a fine dinner.We can make it between us.Beefsteak and mushrooms, and potatoes hashed brown.He likes them.Good old G.S.I shall be right glad to see him.Hope foreign travel has not given him the swell head.""Don't believe it's hurt him a bit.His letter didn't sound like it.Little Georgie ain't a fool," said Jem Belter.
Tom Wetherbee was looking over the letter referred to.
It had been written to the four conjointly, towards the termination of Selden's visit to Mr.Penzance.The young man was not an ardent or fluent correspondent; but Tom Wetherbee was chuckling as he read the epistle.
"Say, boys," he said, "this big thing he's keeping back to tell us when he sees us is all right, but what takes me is old George paying a visit to a parson.He ain't no Young Men's Christian Association."Bert Johnson leaned forward, and looked at the address on the letter paper.
"Mount Dunstan Vicarage," he read aloud."That looks pretty swell, doesn't it?" with a laugh."Say, fellows, you know Jepson at the office, the chap that prides himself on reading such a lot? He said it reminded him of the names of places in English novels.That Johnny's the biggest snob you ever set your tooth into.When I told him about the lord fellow that owns the castle, and that George seemed to have seen him, he nearly fell over himself.Never had any use for George before, but just you watch him make up to him when he sees him next."People were dropping in and taking seats at the tables.
They were all of one class.Young men who lived in hall bedrooms.Young women who worked in shops or offices, a couple here and there, who, living far uptown, had come to Shandy's to dinner, that they might go to cheap seats in some theatre afterwards.In the latter case, the girls wore their best hats, had bright eyes, and cheeks lightly flushed by their sense of festivity.Two or three were very pretty in their thin summer dresses and flowered or feathered head gear, tilted at picturesque angles over their thick hair.When each one entered the eyes of the young men at the corner table followed her with curiosity and interest, but the glances at her escort were always of a disparaging nature.
"There's a beaut!" said Nick Baumgarten."Get onto that pink stuff on her hat, will you.She done it because it's just the colour of her cheeks."They all looked, and the girl was aware of it, and began to laugh and talk coquettishly to the young man who was her companion.
"I wonder where she got Clarence?" said Jem Belter in sarcastic allusion to her escort."The things those lookers have fastened on to them gets ME.""If it was one of US, now," said Bert Johnson.Upon which they broke into simultaneous good-natured laughter.
"It's queer, isn't it," young Baumgarten put in, "how a fellow always feels sore when he sees another fellow with a peach like that? It's just straight human nature, I guess."The door swung open to admit a newcomer, at the sight of whom Jem Belter exclaimed joyously: "Good old Georgie!
Here he is, fellows! Get on to his glad rags.""Glad rags" is supposed to buoyantly describe such attire as, by its freshness or elegance of style, is rendered a suitable adornment for festive occasions or loftier leisure moments.
"Glad rags" may mean evening dress, when a young gentleman's wardrobe can aspire to splendour so marked, but it also applies to one's best and latest-purchased garb, in contradistinction to the less ornamental habiliments worn every day, and designated as "office clothes."G.Selden's economies had not enabled him to give himself into the hands of a Bond Street tailor, but a careful study of cut and material, as spread before the eye in elegant coloured illustrations in the windows of respectable shops in less ambitious quarters, had resulted in the purchase of a well-made suit of smart English cut.He had a nice young figure, and looked extremely neat and tremendously new and clean, so much so, indeed, that several persons glanced at him a little admiringly as he was met half way to the corner table by his friends.
