Big Poker Site hazard of new fortunes 26

down, and another where they could get it in the roof five flights up. At the first the janitor was respectful and enthusiastic; at the second he had an effect of ironical pessimism. When they trembled on the verge of taking his apartment, he pointed out a spot in the kalsomining of the parlor ceiling, and gratuitously said, Now such a thing as that he should not agree to put in shape unless they took the apartment for a term of years. The apartment was unfurnished, and they recurred to the fact that they wanted a furnished apartment, and made their escape. This saved them in several other extremities; but short of extremity they could not keep their different requirements in mind, and were always about to decide without regard to some one of them. They went to several places twice without intending: once to that old-fashioned house with the pleasant colored janitor, and wandered all over the apartment again with a haunting sense of familiarity, and then recognized the janitor and laughed; and to that house with the pathetic widow and the pretty daughter who wished to take them to board. They stayed to excuse their blunder, and easily came by the fact that the mother had taken the house that the girl might have a home while she was in New York studying art, and they hoped to pay their way by taking boarders. Her daughter was at her class now, the mother concluded; and they encouraged her to believe that it could only be a few days till the rest of her scheme was realized. "I dare say we could be perfectly comfortable there," March suggested when they had got away. "Now if we were truly humane we would modify our desires to meet their needs and end this sickening search, wouldnt we?" "Yes, but were not truly humane," his wife answered, "or at least not in that sense. You know you hate boarding; and if we went there I should have them on my sympathies the whole time." "I see. And then you would take it out of me." "Then I should take it out of you. And if you are going to be so weak, Basil, and let every little thing work upon you in that way, youd better not come to New York. Youll see enough misery here." "Well, dont take that superior tone with me, as if I were a child that had its mind set on an undesirable toy, Isabel." "Ah, dont you suppose its because you are such a child in some respects that I like you, dear?" she demanded, without relenting. "But I dont find so much misery in New York. I dont suppose theres any more suffering here to the population than there is in the country. And theyre so gay about it all. I think the outward aspect of the place and the hilarity of the sky and air must get into the peoples blood. The weather is simply unapproachable; and I dont care if it is the ugliest place in the world, as you say. I suppose it is. It shrieks and yells with ugliness here and there but it never loses its spirits. That widow is from the country. When shes been a year in New York shell be as gay--as gay as an L road." He celebrated a satisfaction they both had in the L roads. "They kill the streets and avenues, but at least they partially hide them, and that is some comfort; and they do triumph over their prostrate forms with a savage exultation that is intoxicating. Those bends in the L that you get in the corner of Washington Square, or just below the Cooper Institute--theyre the gayest things in the world. Perfectly atrocious, of course, but incomparably picturesque! And the whole city is so," said March, "or else the L would never have got built here. New York may be splendidly gay or squalidly gay; but, prince or pauper, its gay always." "Yes, gay is the word," she admitted, with a sigh. "But frantic. I cant get used to it. They forget death, Basil; they forget death in New York." "Well, I dont know that Ive ever found much advantage in remembering it." "Dont say such a thing, dearest." He could see that she had got to the end of her nervous strength for the present, and he proposed that they should take the Elevated road as far as it would carry them into the country, and shake off their nightmare of flat-hunting for

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