Life — January 1, 1903 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

New York and the New Year. EW YORK stood sulkily pull- ing on his gloves, as he waited to greet the New Year. The rather bored expression on his face changed to interest, and then to delight, when her radiant figure tim- idly advanced. “‘ This is a bewildering surprise,’’ he murmured, pressing his lips to her finger-tips. ‘I fancied you were a brat of a boy.” “<A boy was expected,” sho replied diffidently; ‘but I happen to be a girl.” Then, hurriedly: “I am so glad you met me. I am sure you are going to protect my youth and innocence, are you not?” “« Assuredly,”” returned New York paternally, ‘From all, save myself. In the first place, you must refuse to even meet Chicago. It would com- promise you terribly to do so. Trust. yourself implicitly to me.’’ “Yon are very wise, are you not?” appealingly. “Him. Very knowing, at least. But you are charming. Do you think you can be happy in my home?” “I don’t know,” said 1903, a little dubiously, lifting a white satin slipper covered with mud, and holding up her MORE THAN RCMOR. filmy skirts flecked with soot. ‘* Your house is so dirty, and your servants are so noisy and quarrelsome.”’ “But couldn’t you learn to love me?" questioned New York eagerly, ardently. “I am a very peculiar nature, and had I met a woman like you earlier, Heaven knows, things might have been different. Let me tell you the story of my life.”” ‘*Oh, no, no!” cried the New Year, putting her hands up before her face. “Mamma made me promise not to listen to that. Even to an expurgated edition. But,’ blushing prettily, and looking up in his face with an ex- pression of Ethel-Barrymore naieté, “I do not think it would be very hard to learn to love you. You are so mag- nificent and splendid, so amusing and gay, that you dazzle me. Still, you and your big house frighten me dread- fally.”” “Frighten you, my child? And why?” “Oh, they say you have a pet tiger roaming about loose.” “Tammany? Why, dear, old Tam- many is gentle as a kitten.”’ «Ah, but you also have fierce dogs, who are always baying at the moon, or at the sun, or—or—”’ “ Any old thing,”’ finished her host. “‘Jerome and Parkhurst, eh? Dear child, they merely amuse themselves barking. I assure you, they are quite pets.”” ‘But you are very cruel sometimes. You turned my grandmother, ’73, out into the streets without a penny. “Merely to give Mr. Pinero an idea for his problem play of ‘Iris’,” re- marked New York parenthetically. “And you made my cousin, '94, a hissing and a byword through the land; and you allowed all sorts of attempts to be made on the life of my dear sister, 1902. Those devil-machines, which you call automobiles, strove to ran her down; rocks were hurled at her from the subway; she was sub- jected to terrible explosions, wrecked in tunnel disasters, and nearly burned to death in appalling fires.”’ “I grant you that my servants wero careless in their treatment of your sister; but, adorable 1903, you are withholding your answer. You will not let my past militate against me?’ “If I were quite sure that you are you,’ she murmured coyly. ‘In all your portraits you wear Colonial cos- tume, square-toed shoes, a white wig, and have a long pipe in your mouth. Bat, on meeting you, I find you are very smart, very modern.’’ “Thave merely adapted my costume comicbooks.com