"I guess you got it," says I. "That's what I'd call a night edition, base ball extra. You mustn't mind folks giraffin' at you. They always do that to strangers."
Bentley didn't mind. Fact is, there wa'n't much that did seem to faze him a whole lot. He'd never rode in the subway before, of course, but he went to readin' the soaps ads just as natural as if he lived in Harlem. I expect that was what egged me on to try and get a rise out of him. You see, when they come in from the rutabaga fields and the wheat orchards, we want 'em to open their mouths and gawp. If they do, we give 'em the laugh; but if they don't, we feel like they was throwin' down the place. So I lays out to astonish Bentley.
First I steers him across Mulberry Bend and into a Pell-st. chop suey joint that wouldn't be runnin' at all if it wa'n't for the Sagadahoc and Elmira folks the two dollar tourin' cars bring down. With all the Chinks gabblin' around outside, though, and the funny, letterin' on the bill of fare, I thought that would stun him some. He just looked around casual, though, and laid into his suey and rice like it was a plate of ham-and, not even askin' if he couldn't buy a pair of chopsticks as a souvenir.
"There's a bunch of desperate characters," says I, pointin' to a table where a gang of Park Row compositors was blowin' themselves to a platter of chow-ghi-sumen.
"Yes?" says he.
"There's Chuck Connors, and Mock Duck, and Bill the Brute, and One Eyed Mike!" I whispers.
"I'm glad I saw them," says Bentley.
"We'll take a sneak before the murderin' begins," say I. "Maybe you'll read about how many was killed, in the mornin' papers."
"I'll look for it," says he.
Say, it was discouragin'. We takes the L up to 23rd and goes across and up the east side of Madison Square.