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THE PLUTONIAN FIRE
 

year 1329. That’s nothing. We all do that. And some day when we make a hit with the little sketch about a newsy and his lame dog, the editor prints the other one for us—or “on us,” as the saying is—and then—and then we have to get a big valise and peddle those patent air-draft gas burners. At $1.25 everybody should have ’em.

I took Pettit to the red-brick house which was to appear in an article entitled “Literary Landmarks of Old New York,” some day when we got through with it. He engaged a room there, drawing on the general store for his expenses. I showed New York to him, and he did not mention how much narrower Broadway is than Lee Avenue in Hosea. This seemed a good sign, so I put the final test.

“Suppose you try your hand at a descriptive article,” I suggested, “giving your impressions of New York as seen from the Brooklyn Bridge. The fresh point of view, the———”

“Don’t be a fool,” said Pettit. “Let’s go have some beer. On the whole I rather like the city.”

We discovered and enjoyed the only true Bohemia. Every day and night we repaired to one of those palaces of marble and glass and tilework, where goes on a tremendous and sounding epic of life. Valhalla itself could not be more glorious and sonorous. The classic marble on which we ate, the great, light-flooded, vitreous front, adorned with snow-white

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