James left his desk only six minutes ago and his luncheon is already over. There remain fifty-four precious minutes. Behold him tasting rapturously of every second of these minutes! Behind a cheap but decorative cigar he walks up, perhaps, Fifth Avenue, undeniably that excellent thoroughfare's possessor. For his delight is Diana poised on her tower of purple memories; the grass of Madison Square is greener than that of his father's lawn; tulips more vivid than these never bloomed in the rich gardens of Holland.
He is considered a sympathetic person, but at noon, I fear, his attitude is that of a realist. For he watches with ingenuous interest the antics of that drunkard on a park bench, and regards the arrival of the patrol wagon and summary removal of the culprit as a drama got up solely for his entertainment. Regrettable as it may seem, it is with heightened spirits that he continues his stroll.
Now he has reached a great bookshop which even the penniless find hospitable. "Some day," says James to himself, "two hundred copies of my novel will draw a crowd around this plate glass window." Mentally he arranges an effective window display and goes on to feast his eyes on vellum and shagreen, on calf delicately tooled and parchment gay with gold leaf and many colored inks. Sometimes he enters the shop (the clerks are indulgent to James and his kind) and, over the merry pages of Jugend and La Vie Parisienne, rejoices that his father made him study modern languages at college.
But literature must not claim too much of his fast-fleeting hour. There are shops at hand whose windows show things stranger than books; chairs and bedsteads eloquent of the genius of Adam and Heppelwhite; the massive silver platter on which old Wardle carved a Christmas goose when Mr. Pickwick was his guest; a mighty flagon that brimmed with red wine for Pantagruel; a carved jade bracelet from the brown arm of the Princess Badoura; the sword of Robert Bruce. All lands, all ages have sent their treasures to New York this noon for the entertainment of James Jones.
It may be that this square of Japanese embroidery, on which fantastic knights thrust tremendous javelins at red and green dragons under astonished willows, was made in Paterson, N. J. What of that? The colors are not therefore less bright. James is not a purchaser, he is merely a spectator of the greatest raree-show in the world. It is well for him to be deceived in the splendors displayed before him. Not so many years ago he would prefer a red glass ball to the Kohinoor and a hand organ with a monkey to a piano with Paderewski. James yet retains a receptivity almost infantile; but it would pain him to be told so.
They are not gregarious, at noon, these young discoverers of New York. They are selfish in their adventuring, for a vision shared is only half a vision. James, I know, is annoyed when he finds an acquaintance gobbling a sandwich at his luncheon counter or staring in a jeweler's window that he has come to regard as his own private property. On Sundays he is sociable enough; he is glad of a companion on his journeys across and up and down Manhattan, among the Italians and negroes of the upper west side, through the loud ghetto and speciously weird Chinatown, in the deliberate sylvanity of Central Park and the Bronx Gardens. In the evening, too, he is not at all a recluse. But at noon he has no appetite for conversation; he would not have his attention taken from the strange streets by an accustomed human being.
James has never ridden on a London bus, yet I believe in the truth of his unspoken thought, that a Fifth Avenue bus is the most excellent vehicle in the world. The London bus depends for its charm on a number of non-essential qualities; on the humor of its driver (are the chauffeurs of London's electric buses also masters of epigram?), on the quaintness and antiquity of the thoroughfare, on the military efficiency of the traffic policemen, on the philmayishness of the passengers. The Fifth Avenue bus has one reason for existence: it shows its passengers Fifth Avenue. No bus can do more.
So one may (if one is young enough to be so foolish and so wise) ride, like the Gaikwar of Baroda in his swaying howdah, high above the people for a golden hour. He may start at uneasy Washington Square, where ancient respectability wars with young bohemianism. Soon he looks down on the throngs of new Americans that tramp the once proud pavement. From his high seat he sees them, the small, dark men and women who, like him, are for a time released from labor. They move slowly in great crowds, they eat frugal meals, the wares of curb-side peddlers, they talk and gesture incessantly. What does James think of them? I do not believe that his opinion is worth knowing.
But he enjoys, I know, the tour through the traffic-filled intersection of Broadway and Twenty-third Street, and he is not old enough to notice with regret the gradual deterioration of the latter street. Freed from the close company of baser vehicles, how triumphantly the bus whirrs up the broad street past the square, among the splendid shops and clubs and churches—the true New Yorker, I think, names them in this order. But James must not give too much attention to the lovely Gothic lines of St. Thomas's, or the lovely Byzantine lines of that pink chiffon lady in the landau—the luncheon hour draws to a close, and punctuality, he still believes, is a business virtue.
The brevity of this recess is essential to it. If the time be indefinitely increased, if the young adventurer be allowed all the morning and all the afternoon for his wandering, then all the zest goes out of the adventure. There is that trusted veteran employee in the corner of the office. He receives fabulous sums on pay day and may go out to luncheon whenever he desires, with no time clerk to censor him. He knows New York less than does James. But does his curiosity urge him forth to long adventures? Over his stale morning's paper in the deserted office, seated before his familiar task, he eats his sordid and wife-made luncheon!