Gertie smothered a laugh. "You're not the first man that's
been deceived by a pig-tail braid and a baby blue waist. I could
locate those two gray hairs for you with my eyes shut and my feet
in a sack. Come on, boy. These Robert W. Chambers situations make
me nervous."
Many earnest young writers with a flow of adjectives and a
passion for detail have attempted to describe the quiet of a great
city at night, when a few million people within it are sleeping, or
ought to be. They work in the clang of a distant owl car, and the
roar of an occasional "L" train, and the hollow echo of the
footsteps of the late passer-by. They go elaborately into
description, and are strong on the brooding hush, but the thing has
never been done satisfactorily.
Gertie, sitting on the front stoop at two in the morning, with
her orange in one hand and the sardine can in the other, put it
this way:
"If I was to hear a cricket chirp now, I'd screech. This
isn't really quiet. It's like waiting for a cannon cracker to go
off just before the fuse is burned down. The bang isn't there yet,
but you hear it a hundred times in your mind before it happens."
"My name's Augustus G. Eddy," announced the Kid Next Door,
solemnly. "Back home they always called me Gus. You peel that
orange while I unroll the top of this sardine can.
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