Big Poker Site hazard of new fortunes 35

Latin ideal, with little or no structural change from the pattern of the lower middle-class New York home. There were the corroded brownstone steps, the mean little front door, and the cramped entry with its narrow stairs by which ladies could go up to a dining-room appointed for them on the second floor; the parlors on the first were set about with tables, where men smoked cigarettes between the courses, and a single waiter ran swiftly to and fro with plates and dishes, and, exchanged unintelligible outcries with a cook beyond a slide in the back parlor. He rushed at the new-comers, brushed the soiled table-cloth before them with a towel on his arm, covered its worst stains with a napkin, and brought them, in their order, the vermicelli soup, the fried fish, the cheese-strewn spaghetti, the veal cutlets, the tepid roast fowl and salad, and the wizened pear and coffee which form the dinner at such places. "Ah, this is nice!" said Fulkerson, after the laying of the charitable napkin, and he began to recognize acquaintances, some of whom he described to March as young literary men and artists with whom they should probably have to do; others were simply frequenters of the place, and were of all nationalities and religions apparently--at least, several were Hebrews and Cubans. "You get a pretty good slice of New York here," he said, "all except the frosting on top. That you wont find much at Maronis, though you will occasionally. I dont mean the ladies ever, of course." The ladies present seemed harmless and reputable-looking people enough, but certainly they were not of the first fashion, and, except in a few instances, not Americans. "Its like cutting straight down through a fruitcake," Fulkerson went on, "or a mince-pie, when you dont know who made the pie; you get a little of everything." He ordered a small flask of Chianti with the dinner, and it came in its pretty wicker jacket. March smiled upon it with tender reminiscence, and Fulkerson laughed. "Lights you up a little. I brought old Dryfoos here one day, and he thought it was sweet-oil; thats the kind of bottle they used to have it in at the country drug-stores." "Yes, I remember now; but Id totally forgotten it," said March. "How far back that goes! Whos Dryfoos?" "Dryfoos?" Fulkerson, still smiling, tore off a piece of the half-yard of French loaf which had been supplied them, with two pale, thin disks of butter, and fed it into himself. "Old Dryfoos? Well, of course! I call him old, but he aint so very. About fifty, or along there." "No," said March, "that isnt very old--or not so old as it used to be." "Well, I suppose youve got to know about him, anyway," said Fulkerson, thoughtfully. "And Ive been wondering just how I should tell you. Cant always make out exactly how much of a Bostonian you really are! Ever been out in the natural-gas country?" "No," said March. "Ive had a good deal of curiosity about it, but Ive never been able to get away except in summer, and then we always preferred to go over the old ground, out to Niagara and back through Canada, the route we took on our wedding journey. The children like it as much as we do." "Yes, yes," said Fulkerson. "Well, the natural-gas country is worth seeing. I dont mean the Pittsburg gas-fields, but out in Northern Ohio and Indiana around Moffitt--thats the place in the heart of the gas region that theyve been booming so. Yes, you ought to see that country. If you havent been West for a good many years, you havent got any idea how old the country looks. You remember how the fields used to be all full of stumps?" "I should think so." "Well, you wont see any stumps now. All that country out around Moffitt is just as smooth as a checker-board, and looks as old as England. You know how we used to burn the stumps out; and then somebody invented a stump-extractor, and we pulled them out with a yoke of oxen. Now they just touch em off with a little dynamite, and theyve got a cellar dug and filled up with kindling ready for housekeeping whenever you want it. Only they havent got any use for kindling in that country--all gas. I rode along on the cars through those level black fields at corn-planting time, and every once in a while Id come to a place with a piece of ragged old stove-pipe stickin up out

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