When you give them the horn, they are seized
with the belief that you are trying to play the prelude to "Lohengrin,"
and they run up and down in front of the car in extreme agitation. You
frustrate their plans for a beautiful death by rasping your tires
against the curb, together with your nerves. At Seventy-second Street
two women are saying good-bye in the middle of the street. You swerve to
one side and they pursue. You snap your spinal column as you shoot the
car straight about, but when you get there they are there. "Ladies,"
you say, "I am not leading a cotillion. I am an old man out for a bit of
fresh air." Thereupon one calls you a brute and the other discerns from
the colour of your nose that you have been drinking. At Forty-second
Street you catch sight of your doctor. "Have you killed any one?" he
says, after the cheerful manner of doctors. "No," you say, "but if you
will kindly step into the car, I will."
Of the American farmer it may be said that, Mr. Roosevelt to the
contrary notwithstanding, he is not an unimaginative, overworked being.
It can be demonstrated that the contemplative life is on the increase in
the rural districts.
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