Parents were dead willing to have him migrate and take his Tailor Bills with him, but they shivered with Dread when it came time to ship him to Gomorrah.
They knew all about the unbridled Deviltry of the City, having seen the large colored Illustrations in the Sunday Papers.
They had it on good Authority that the whole sub-stratum of Urban Existence was honeycombed with Rathskellers, while a Prominent Actress waited on almost every Corner, soliciting Travel on the Taxicab Route to the everlasting Coke Ovens.
While Elmer's fragile Steamer Trunk was being hoisted into the Dray, all the Relations who had assisted in bringing him up by Hand clustered around the melodeon and sang, "Oh, where is my Boy to-night?"
After the Day Coach had pulled away from the Depot, he opened the Shoe- Box to extract a Crull and found a Book written by T. DeWitt Talmage, in which many Passages were marked.
He arrived at Union Station with his Fingers crossed. He told himself
that he would break into a Dog Trot every time Vice beckoned to him.
After he had hung up his Diploma and Razor Strop in the third-story
Recess of a very naughty Beanery, he hunted up some of the dear old
Pals with whom he had bunked in the Dorm.
They told him they would put him next to a lot of nice clean People. He began to tremble, fearing that some one was about to offer him Champagne, but the Orgy to which they conducted him was merely a meeting of the Civic Purifiers in a basement underneath a Church. He had not expected to find any Churches in the great wicked City. He thought each side of the Street would be built up solidly with Syndicate Theatres, Bacchanalian Bazaars, and Manicure Pitfalls.
Instead of finding Vice triumphant, he learned that it was being chased up an Alley by the entire Police Force and the Federation of Women's Clubs.
He had the gift of Gab and a natural thirst for Tea, and the first thing he knew he had been drawn into so many Campaigns for Social Betterment that he had no time to hunt up conventional Temptations, such as the Welsh Rabbit or the Musical Comedy.
He found himself sitting next to a new type of Lassie. She had no Heels on her Shoes, pronounced each Syllable distinctly, and believed that her Mission in Life was to carry Maeterlinck to the Masses.