第27章 PART FIRST(25)

"All right,"said Fulkerson."Dine with me.I want to take you round to a little Italian place that I know."One may trace the successive steps of March's descent in this simple matter with the same edification that would attend the study of the self-delusions and obfuscations of a man tempted to crime.The process is probably not at all different,and to the philosophical mind the kind of result is unimportant;the process is everything.

Fulkerson led him down one block and half across another to the steps of a small dwelling-house,transformed,like many others,into a restaurant of the 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 won't find much at Maroni's,though you will occasionally.I don't 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."It's like cutting straight down through a fruitcake,"Fulkerson went on,"or a mince-pie,when you don't 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;that's the kind of bottle they used to have it in at the country drug-stores.""Yes,I remember now;but I'd totally forgotten it,"said March.

"How far back that goes!Who's 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 ain't so very.About fifty,or along there.""No,"said March,"that isn't very old--or not so old as it used to be.""Well,I suppose you've got to know about him,anyway,"said Fulkerson,thoughtfully."And I've been wondering just how I should tell you.

Can't always make out exactly how much of a Bostonian you really are!

Ever been out in the natural-gas country?""No,"said March."I've had a good deal of curiosity about it,but I've 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 don't mean the Pittsburg gas-fields,but out in Northern Ohio and Indiana around Moffitt--that's the place in the heart of the gas region that they've been booming so.Yes,you ought to see that country.

If you haven't been West for a good many years,you haven't 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 won't 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 they've got a cellar dug and filled up with kindling ready for housekeeping whenever you want it.

Only they haven't 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 I'd come to a place with a piece of ragged old stove-pipe stickin'up out of the ground,and blazing away like forty,and a fellow ploughing all round it and not minding it any more than if it was spring violets.Horses didn't notice it,either.

Well,they've always known about the gas out there;they say there are places in the woods where it's been burning ever since the country was settled.