I have always wanted to have an intimate interview with a New York subway guard. Selecting one that I thought would answer my purpose, I arrayed myself in medieval armour, and sent up my card.
He received me very pleasantly.
"Sit down and make yourself at home," he said, throwing me across the room into a chair.
"You don't know how to sit down, do you?"
He stood me on my head once or twice, broke a collar bone or so and I believe a rib, and arranged me in the proper manner.
"There, that's better," he said. "Now, what can I do for you? Any little thing."
My armour, which, though not made to order fitted me fairly well when I entered, was now bent so as to occasion me some slight inconvenience. But I smiled brightly and replied:
"I came in to know how you like your life's work?"
"I was born to it," he replied, playfully putting his feet on my chest and gentle exerting a four hundred-pound pressure until I felt the wall behind me preparing to yield. "It's a great thing to understand your job, to like it, and to know that you are the right man in the right place."
"Don't you find," I ventured, "that people are often rude to you?"
"That is my cross," he replied. "The work of every real artist is handicapped by the misunderstanding of the purely vulgar; but I bear with them, I bear with them."
He started to move me to the ceiling, when, thinking that I might interest him in the details of his profession, I asked: “At a guess, about how many people can you get into an ordinary subway car?"
He smiled blithely and flicked the ashes of a superb stogie into my off eye.
"It depends entirely upon my moods," he replied. “I am very temperamental. If I am feeling in fairly good condition, and at peace with all the world, I can get in about five thousand."
"That is a goodly number," I ventured. The truth is, my mind was beginning to wander slightly. And my blood pressure, I should judge, was above one thousand, and I was afraid to start anything too definite.
"I suppose," I added, as vaguely as possible "that on your off days you couldn't pack in more than two or three hundred or possibly--"
A hurt look came into his eye, and I saw his muscles begin to swell ominously.
“Now you are guying me," he said. Picking me up and throwing me down, he stamped on me for a few moments until my new suit was something like a sheet of steel writing paper. Then he folded me up and shot me through the door.
"Come around and see me again," he chortled, "I'm a little off today, not quite myself."
'From "Well, Why Not?" Doubleday, Page and Company, 1921. THOMAS L. MASSON
"Sit down and make yourself at home," he said, throwing me across the room into a chair.
"You don't know how to sit down, do you?"
He stood me on my head once or twice, broke a collar bone or so and I believe a rib, and arranged me in the proper manner.
"There, that's better," he said. "Now, what can I do for you? Any little thing."
My armour, which, though not made to order fitted me fairly well when I entered, was now bent so as to occasion me some slight inconvenience. But I smiled brightly and replied:
"I came in to know how you like your life's work?"
"I was born to it," he replied, playfully putting his feet on my chest and gentle exerting a four hundred-pound pressure until I felt the wall behind me preparing to yield. "It's a great thing to understand your job, to like it, and to know that you are the right man in the right place."
"Don't you find," I ventured, "that people are often rude to you?"
"That is my cross," he replied. "The work of every real artist is handicapped by the misunderstanding of the purely vulgar; but I bear with them, I bear with them."
He started to move me to the ceiling, when, thinking that I might interest him in the details of his profession, I asked: “At a guess, about how many people can you get into an ordinary subway car?"
He smiled blithely and flicked the ashes of a superb stogie into my off eye.
"It depends entirely upon my moods," he replied. “I am very temperamental. If I am feeling in fairly good condition, and at peace with all the world, I can get in about five thousand."
"That is a goodly number," I ventured. The truth is, my mind was beginning to wander slightly. And my blood pressure, I should judge, was above one thousand, and I was afraid to start anything too definite.
"I suppose," I added, as vaguely as possible "that on your off days you couldn't pack in more than two or three hundred or possibly--"
A hurt look came into his eye, and I saw his muscles begin to swell ominously.
“Now you are guying me," he said. Picking me up and throwing me down, he stamped on me for a few moments until my new suit was something like a sheet of steel writing paper. Then he folded me up and shot me through the door.
"Come around and see me again," he chortled, "I'm a little off today, not quite myself."
'From "Well, Why Not?" Doubleday, Page and Company, 1921. THOMAS L. MASSON
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