I wish the Grand Canyon were over in
Jersey!"
"Sept. 4.--I am unfit to speak to you, but oh, I need you as I never
did before. Don't turn those kind, clear-seeing eyes away from me,
Lucy! Lucy! It happened this way. I wanted, if possible to make our
Police Commissioner see Minetta Lane through my eyes. And I took him
down there, three days ago. It's unchanged, in all these years, except
for the worse. And Luigi was dragging a sack of rags into his
basement. He was gray and bent but it was Luigi. And he recognized me
and yelled 'Bastard!' after me. Lucy, I went back and beat him, till
the Commissioner hauled me off. And the dirty, spluttering little
devil roared my story to all that greedy, listening crowd! I slipped
away, Lucy, and I hid myself in a place I know in Chinatown. No! No!
I don't drink and I don't hit the pipe. I _gamble_. My luck is
unbelievable. And when the fit is on me, I'd gamble my very soul away.
Jonas found me. Jonas is a colored porter in the City Hall who has
rather adopted me. And Jonas said, 'Boss, how come you to do a stunt
like this? The Police Commissioner say to the Mayor and I hear 'em, an
Italian black hander take you for somebody else and he have him run in.
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