"I am that man," I said.
For a fraction of a second the policeman's jaw dropped; but he was
a thoroughbred. His heels came together before, as it seemed, he
could have read my name; he straightened up. The half-peeled orange
fell from his hand and rolled into the gutter, covertly speeded by
a dextrous little kick. The unhappy Italian, believing it a mishap,
made haste to select the biggest and juiciest fruit on his stand,
and held it out with a propitiatory bow, but he spurned him haughtily
away.
"These dagoes," he said, elaborately placing my card in the sweat-band
of his hat, "ain't got no manners. It's a hard place for a good
man down here. It's time I was a roundsman. You can do it. You've
got de 'pull.'"
When Roosevelt had gone to Washington to help fit out the navy for
the war with Spain, I spent a part of the winter there with him,
and Mulberry Street took it for granted that I had at last been
"placed" as I should have been long before. There was great amazement
when I came back to take my old place. The truth was that I had
gone partly to observe what went on at the capital for my paper,
and partly to speed on the war, in which I was a hearty believer
from the first.
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