The guys with wads are not in the
frame of mind to slack up on the mazuma, and the man with the portable
tin banqueting canister isn't exactly ready to join the Bible class.
You can bet your variegated socks that the situation is all
spifflicated up from the Battery to breakfast! What the country needs
is for some bully old bloke like Cobden or some wise guy like old Ben
Franklin to sashay up to the front and biff the nigger's head with
the baseball. Do you catch my smoke? What?"
Rivington pulled me by the arm impatiently.
"Please come on," he said. "Let's go see something. This isn't what
you want."
"Indeed, it is," I said resisting. "This tough talk is the very stuff
that counts. There is a picturesqueness about the speech of the lower
order of people that is quite unique. Did you say that this is the
Bowery variety of slang?"
"Oh, well," said Rivington, giving it up, "I'll tell you straight.
That's one of our college professors talking. He ran down for a day or
two at the club. It's a sort of fad with him lately to use slang in
his conversation. He thinks it improves language. The man he is
talking to is one of New York's famous social economists. Now will
you come on. You can't use that, you know."
"No," I agreed; "I can't use that.
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