"
Well, then, here is a story of New York. A tale of the night heart of
the city, where the vein of Forty-Second touches the artery of Broadway;
where, amid the constellations of chewing-gum ads and tooth paste and
memory methods, rise the incandescent facades of "dancing academies"
with their "sixty instructresses," their beat of brass and strings,
their whisper of feet, their clink of dimes.--Let a man not work away
his strength and his youth. Let him breathe a new melody, let him draw
out of imagination a novel step, a more fantastic tilt of the pelvis, a
wilder gesticulation of the deltoid. Let him put out his hand to the
Touch of Gold.--
It is a tale of this New York. That it didn't chance to happen in New
York is beside the point. Where? It wouldn't help you much if I told
you. Taai. That island. Take an imaginary ramrod into Times Square, push
it straight down through the center of the earth; where it comes out on
the other side will not be very many thousand miles wide of that earth
speck in the South Seas. Some thousands, yes; but out here a few
thousand miles and a month or so by schooner make less difference than
they do where the trains run under the ground.--
"Glauber's Academy"--"Einstein's Restaurant"--"Herald Square"--
I can't tell you how bizarrely those half-fabulous names fell from
Signet's lips in the turquoise and gold of the afternoon.
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