A green willow plume would make Edna May
look sophisticated. She walked with that humping hip movement
which city women acquire. She carried a jangling handful of
useless gold trinkets. Her heels were too high, and her hair too
yellow, and her lips too red, and her nose too white, and her
cheeks too pink. Everything about her was "too," from the black
stitching on her white gloves to the buckle of brilliants in her
hat. The city had her, body and soul, and had fashioned her in its
metallic cast. You would have sworn that she had never seen
flowers growing in a field.
Said she to Tony:
"Got a Kewaskum Courier?"
As she said it the man stopped at the stand and put his
question. To present this thing properly I ought to be able to
describe them both at the same time, like a juggler keeping two
balls in the air at once. Kindly carry the lady in your mind's
eye. The man was tall and rawboned, with very white teeth, very
blue eyes and an open-faced collar that allowed full play to an
objectionably apparent Adam's apple. His hair and mustache were
sandy, his gait loping. His manner, clothes, and complexion
breathed of Waco, Texas (or is it Arizona?)
Said he to Tony:
"Let me have the London Times."
Well, there you are. I turned an accusing eye on Tony.
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