She hadn't thought the whole world contained so many people as she
saw in New York in one day. Fifth Avenue amazed and absorbed more
than it delighted her. The expressionless expressions of the women,
their hand-made faces, their smart shoes, the way they wore their
hair, the way they wore their clothes; the men's air of being well
dressed, of having money to spend, of appearing importantly busy at
any cost; a certain pretentiousness, as if everything were shown at
once and there were no reserve of power, nothing held in disciplined
abeyance, interested her profoundly. She had a native shrewdness.
"They're just like the same kind of folks back home, but there's
more of 'em here," she decided.
The huge policemen she saw at every turn, lordly and massive
monoliths rising superbly above lesser humanity, filled her with the
deepest respect and admiration. The mere policemen in her home town
were to these magnificent beings as daubs to Titians, as pigmies to
Titans. If in those first days the girl had been called upon to do
the seven bendings and the nine knockings before the one New York
institution which impressed her most profoundly, she undoubtedly
would have singled out one of those mastodons a-bossing everything
and everybody, with a prize-ham paw.
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