There
was a jam and a babel of voices. Interminable strings of
passengers, travel-worn, begrimed, their eyes searching the
throng, came dribbling out of the cars with tantalizing slowness.
Men in livery caps were chanting the names of their respective
boarding-houses. Passengers were shouting the pet names of their
wives or children; women and children were calling to their newly
arrived husbands and fathers, some gaily, others shrieking, as
though the train were on fire. There were a large number of
handsome, well-groomed women in expensive dresses and
diamonds, and some of these were being kissed by puny, but
successful-looking, men. "They married them for their money," I
said to myself. An absurd-looking shirt-waist-manufacturer of my
acquaintance, a man with the face of a squirrel, swooped down
upon a large young matron of dazzling animal beauty who had
come in an automobile. He introduced me to her, with a beaming
air of triumph. "I can afford a machine and a beautiful wife," his
radiant squirrel-face seemed to say.
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