We might have wasted our evening on a dead one."
So we're all delighted and go out and get in a couple of taxicabs, Ben
and this city man going in the first one. When ours gets to the theatre
Ben is paying the driver while the New Yorker feebly protests that he
ought to pay his half of the bill, but Ben don't hear him and don't hear
him again when he wants to pay for his own seat in the theatre. I got
my first suspicion of this guy right there; for a genuine New Yorker he
was too darned conscientious about paying his mere share of everything.
You can say lots of things about New Yorkers, but all that I've ever met
have been keenly and instantly sensitive to the presence of a determined
buyer. Still I didn't think so much about it at that moment. This one
looked the part all right, with his slim clothes and his natty cloth hat
and the thin gold cigarette case held gracefully open. Then we get into
the theatre. Of course Ben had bought a box, that being the only place,
he says, that a gentleman can set, owing to the skimpy notions of
theatre-seat builders. And we was all prepared for a merry evening at
this entertainment which the wise New Yorker would be sure to know was a
good one.
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