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What You Want

Short Stories

"Fox-in-the-Morning"

A Bird of Bagdad

A Blackjack Bargainer

A Call Loan

A Chaparral Christmas Gift

A Chaparral Prince

A Comedy in Rubber

A Cosmopolite in a Cafe

A Departmental Case

A Dinner at--------*

A Double-Dyed Deceiver

A Fog in Santone

A Harlem Tragedy

A Lickpenny Lover

A Little Local Colour

A Little Talk about Mobs

A Madison Square Arabian Night

A Matter of Mean Elevation

A Midsummer Knight's Dream

A Midsummer Masquerade

A Municipal Report

A Newspaper Story

A Night in New Arabia

A Philistine in Bohemia

A Poor Rule

A Ramble in Aphasia

A Retrieved Reformation

A Ruler of Men

A Sacrifice Hit

A Service of Love

A Snapshot at the President

A Strange Story

A Technical Error

A Tempered Wind

According to Their Lights

After Twenty Years

An Adjustment of Nature

An Afternoon Miracle

An Apology

An Unfinished Christmas Story

An Unfinished Story

Aristocracy Versus Hash

Art and the Bronco

At Arms With Morpheus

Babes in the Jungle

Best-Seller

Between Rounds

Bexar Scrip No. 2692

Blind Man's Holiday

Brickdust Row

Buried Treasure

By Courier

Calloway's Code

Caught

Cherchez La Femme

Christmas by Injunction

Compliments of the Season

Confessions of a Humorist

Conscience in Art

Cupid a La Carte

Cupid's Exile Number Two

Dickey

Dougherty's Eye-Opener

Elsie in New York

Extradited from Bohemia

Fickle Fortune or How Gladys Hustled

Friends in San Rosario

From Each According to His Ability

From the Cabby's Seat

Georgia's Ruling

Girl

He Also Serves

Hearts and Crosses

Hearts and Hands

Helping the Other Fellow

Holding Up a Train

Hostages to Momus

Hygeia at the Solito

Innocents of Broadway

Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet

Jimmy Hayes and Muriel

Law and Order

Let Me Feel Your Pulse

Little Speck in Garnered Fruit

Lord Oakhurst's Curse

Lost on Dress Parade

Madame Bo-Peep, of the Ranches

Makes the Whole World Kin

Mammon and the Archer

Man About Town

Masters of Arts

Memoirs of a Yellow Dog

Modern Rural Sports

Money Maze

Nemesis and the Candy Man

New York by Camp Fire Light

Next to Reading Matter

No Story

October and June

On Behalf of the Management

One Dollar's Worth

One Thousand Dollars

Out of Nazareth

Past One at Rooney's

Phoebe

Proof of the Pudding

Psyche and the Pskyscraper

Queries and Answers

Roads of Destiny

Roses, Ruses and Romance

Rouge et Noir

Round the Circle

Rus in Urbe

Schools and Schools

Seats of the Haughty

Shearing the Wolf

Ships

Shoes

Sisters of the Golden Circle

Smith

Sociology in Serge and Straw

Sound and Fury

Springtime a La Carte

Squaring the Circle

Strictly Business

Strictly Business

Suite Homes and Their Romance

Telemachus, Friend

The Admiral

The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes

The Assessor of Success

The Atavism of John Tom Little Bear

The Badge of Policeman O'Roon

The Brief Debut of Tildy

The Buyer From Cactus City

The Caballero's Way

The Cactus

The Caliph and the Cad

The Caliph, Cupid and the Clock

The Call of the Tame

The Chair of Philanthromathematics

The Champion of the Weather

The Church with an Overshot-Wheel

The City of Dreadful Night

The Clarion Call

The Coming-Out of Maggie

The Complete Life of John Hopkins

The Cop and the Anthem

The Count and the Wedding Guest

The Country of Elusion

The Day Resurgent

The Day We Celebrate

The Defeat of the City

The Detective Detector

The Diamond of Kali

The Discounters of Money

The Dog and the Playlet

The Door of Unrest

The Dream

The Duel

The Duplicity of Hargraves

The Easter of the Soul

The Emancipation of Billy

The Enchanted Kiss

The Enchanted Profile

The Ethics of Pig

The Exact Science of Matrimony

The Ferry of Unfulfilment

The Fifth Wheel

The Flag Paramount

The Fool-Killer

The Foreign Policy of Company 99

The Fourth in Salvador

The Friendly Call

The Furnished Room

The Gift of the Magi

The Girl and the Graft

The Girl and the Habit

The Gold That Glittered

The Greater Coney

The Green Door

The Guardian of the Accolade

The Guilty Party - An East Side Tragedy

The Halberdier of the Little Rheinschloss

The Hand that Riles the World

The Handbook of Hymen

The Harbinger

The Head-Hunter

The Hiding of Black Bill

The Higher Abdication

The Higher Pragmatism

The Hypotheses of Failure

The Indian Summer of Dry Valley Johnson

The Lady Higher Up

The Last Leaf

The Last of the Troubadours

The Lonesome Road

The Lost Blend

The Lotus And The Bottle

The Love-Philtre of Ikey Schoenstein

The Making of a New Yorker

The Man Higher Up

The Marionettes

The Marquis and Miss Sally

The Marry Month of May

The Memento

The Missing Chord

The Moment of Victory

The Octopus Marooned

The Passing of Black Eagle

The Pendulum

The Phonograph and the Graft

The Pimienta Pancakes

The Plutonian Fire

The Poet and the Peasant

The Pride of the Cities

The Princess and the Puma

The Prisoner of Zembla

The Proem

The Purple Dress

The Ransom of Mack

The Ransom of Red Chief

The Rathskeller and the Rose

The Red Roses of Tonia

The Reformation of Calliope

The Remnants of the Code

The Renaissance at Charleroi

The Roads We Take

The Robe of Peace

The Romance of a Busy Broker

The Rose of Dixie

The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball

The Rubber Plant's Story

The Shamrock and the Palm

The Shocks of Doom

The Skylight Room

The Sleuths

The Snow Man

The Social Triangle

The Song and the Sergeant

The Sparrows in Madison Square

The Sphinx Apple

The Tale of a Tainted Tenner

The Theory and the Hound

The Thing's the Play

The Third Ingredient

The Trimmed Lamp

The Unknown Quantity

The Unprofitable Servant

The Venturers

The Vitagraphoscope

The Voice of the City

The Whirligig of Life

The World and the Door

Thimble, Thimble

Tictocq

To Him Who Waits

Tobin's Palm

Tommy's Burglar

Tracked to Doom

Transformation of Martin Burney

Transients in Arcadia

Two Recalls

Two Renegades

Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen

Ulysses and the Dogman

Vanity and Some Sables

What You Want

While the Auto Waits

Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking

Witches' Loaves







Night had fallen on that great and beautiful city known as
Bagdad-on-the-Subway. And with the night came the enchanted glamour
that belongs not to Arabia alone. In different masquerade the streets,
bazaars and walled houses of the occidental city of romance were filled
with the same kind of folk that so much interested our interesting old
friend, the late Mr. H. A. Rashid. They wore clothes eleven hundred
years nearer to the latest styles than H. A. saw in old Bagdad; but they
were about the same people underneath. With the eye of faith, you could
have seen the Little Hunchback, Sinbad the Sailor, Fitbad the Tailor,
the Beautiful Persian, the one-eyed Calenders, Ali Baba and Forty
Robbers on every block, and the Barber and his Six Brothers, and all the
old Arabian gang easily.

But let us revenue to our lamb chops.

Old Tom Crowley was a caliph. He had $42,000,000 in preferred stocks and
bonds with solid gold edges. In these times, to be called a caliph you
must have money. The old-style caliph business as conducted by Mr.
Rashid is not safe. If you hold up a person nowadays in a bazaar or a
Turkish bath or a side street, and inquire into his private and personal
affairs, the police court'll get you.

Old Tom was tired of clubs, theatres, dinners, friends, music, money
and everything. That's what makes a caliph--you must get to despise
everything that money can buy, and then go out and try to want something
that you can't pay for.

"I'll take a little trot around town all by myself," thought old Tom,
"and try if I can stir up anything new. Let's see--it seems I've read
about a king or a Cardiff giant or something in old times who used to go
about with false whiskers on, making Persian dates with folks he hadn't
been introduced to. That don't listen like a bad idea. I certainly have
got a case of humdrumness and fatigue on for the ones I do know. That
old Cardiff used to pick up cases of trouble as he ran upon 'em and give
'em gold--sequins, I think it was--and make 'em marry or got 'em good
Government jobs. Now, I'd like something of that sort. My money is as
good as his was even if the magazines do ask me every month where I got
it. Yes, I guess I'll do a little Cardiff business to-night, and see how
it goes."

Plainly dressed, old Tom Crowley left his Madison Avenue palace, and
walked westward and then south. As he stepped to the sidewalk, Fate,
who holds the ends of the strings in the central offices of all the
enchanted cities pulled a thread, and a young man twenty blocks away
looked at a wall clock, and then put on his coat.

James Turner worked in one of those little hat-cleaning establishments
on Sixth Avenue in which a fire alarm rings when you push the door
open, and where they clean your hat while you wait--two days. James
stood all day at an electric machine that turned hats around faster than
the best brands of champagne ever could have done. Overlooking your mild
impertinence in feeling a curiosity about the personal appearance of a
stranger, I will give you a modified description of him. Weight, 118;
complexion, hair and brain, light; height, five feet six; age, about
twenty-three; dressed in a $10 suit of greenish-blue serge; pockets
containing two keys and sixty-three cents in change.

But do not misconjecture because this description sounds like a General
Alarm that James was either lost or a dead one.

_Allons!_

James stood all day at his work. His feet were tender and extremely
susceptible to impositions being put upon or below them. All day long
they burned and smarted, causing him much suffering and inconvenience.
But he was earning twelve dollars per week, which he needed to support
his feet whether his feet would support him or not.

James Turner had his own conception of what happiness was, just as you
and I have ours. Your delight is to gad about the world in yachts and
motor-cars and to hurl ducats at wild fowl. Mine is to smoke a pipe at
evenfall and watch a badger, a rattlesnake, and an owl go into their
common prairie home one by one.

James Turner's idea of bliss was different; but it was his. He would go
directly to his boarding-house when his day's work was done. After his
supper of small steak, Bessemer potatoes, stooed (not stewed) apples and
infusion of chicory, he would ascend to his fifth-floor-back hall room.
Then he would take off his shoes and socks, place the soles of his
burning feet against the cold bars of his iron bed, and read Clark
Russell's sea yarns. The delicious relief of the cool metal applied to
his smarting soles was his nightly joy. His favorite novels never palled
upon him; the sea and the adventures of its navigators were his sole
intellectual passion. No millionaire was ever happier than James Turner
taking his ease.

When James left the hat-cleaning shop he walked three blocks out of
his way home to look over the goods of a second-hand bookstall. On the
sidewalk stands he had more than once picked up a paper-covered volume
of Clark Russell at half price.

While he was bending with a scholarly stoop over the marked-down
miscellany of cast-off literature, old Tom the caliph sauntered by. His
discerning eye, made keen by twenty years' experience in the manufacture
of laundry soap (save the wrappers!) recognized instantly the poor
and discerning scholar, a worthy object of his caliphanous mood. He
descended the two shallow stone steps that led from the sidewalk, and
addressed without hesitation the object of his designed munificence. His
first words were no worse than salutatory and tentative.

James Turner looked up coldly, with "Sartor Resartus" in one hand and
"A Mad Marriage" in the other.

"Beat it," said he. "I don't want to buy any coat hangers or town lots
in Hankipoo, New Jersey. Run along, now, and play with your Teddy bear."

"Young man," said the caliph, ignoring the flippancy of the hat cleaner,
"I observe that you are of a studious disposition. Learning is one of
the finest things in the world. I never had any of it worth mentioning,
but I admire to see it in others. I come from the West, where we imagine
nothing but facts. Maybe I couldn't understand the poetry and allusions
in them books you are picking over, but I like to see somebody else seem
to know what they mean. I'm worth about $40,000,000, and I'm getting
richer every day. I made the height of it manufacturing Aunt Patty's
Silver Soap. I invented the art of making it. I experimented for three
years before I got just the right quantity of chloride of sodium
solution and caustic potash mixture to curdle properly. And after I had
taken some $9,000,000 out of the soap business I made the rest in corn
and wheat futures. Now, you seem to have the literary and scholarly
turn of character; and I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll pay for your
education at the finest college in the world. I'll pay the expense of
your rummaging over Europe and the art galleries, and finally set you up
in a good business. You needn't make it soap if you have any objections.
I see by your clothes and frazzled necktie that you are mighty poor; and
you can't afford to turn down the offer. Well, when do you want to
begin?"

The hat cleaner turned upon old Tom the eye of the Big City, which is an
eye expressive of cold and justifiable suspicion, of judgment suspended
as high as Haman was hung, of self-preservation, of challenge,
curiosity, defiance, cynicism, and, strange as you may think it, of a
childlike yearning for friendliness and fellowship that must be hidden
when one walks among the "stranger bands." For in New Bagdad one, in
order to survive, must suspect whosoever sits, dwells, drinks, rides,
walks or sleeps in the adjacent chair, house, booth, seat, path or room.

"Say, Mike," said James Turner, "what's your line, anyway--shoe laces?
I'm not buying anything. You better put an egg in your shoe and beat it
before incidents occur to you. You can't work off any fountain pens,
gold spectacles you found on the street, or trust company certificate
house clearings on me. Say, do I look like I'd climbed down one of them
missing fire-escapes at Helicon Hall? What's vitiating you, anyhow?"

"Son," said the caliph, in his most Harunish tones, "as I said, I'm
worth $40,000,000. I don't want to have it all put in my coffin when I
die. I want to do some good with it. I seen you handling over these
here volumes of literature, and I thought I'd keep you. I've give the
missionary societies $2,000,000, but what did I get out of it? Nothing
but a receipt from the secretary. Now, you are just the kind of young
man I'd like to take up and see what money could make of him."

Volumes of Clark Russell were hard to find that evening at the Old
Book Shop. And James Turner's smarting and aching feet did not tend to
improve his temper. Humble hat cleaner though he was, he had a spirit
equal to any caliph's.

"Say, you old faker," he said, angrily, "be on your way. I don't know
what your game is, unless you want change for a bogus $40,000,000 bill.
Well, I don't carry that much around with me. But I do carry a pretty
fair left-handed punch that you'll get if you don't move on."

"You are a blamed impudent little gutter pup," said the caliph.

Then James delivered his self-praised punch; old Tom seized him by the
collar and kicked him thrice; the hat cleaner rallied and clinched; two
bookstands were overturned, and the books sent flying. A copy came up,
took an arm of each, and marched them to the nearest station house.
"Fighting and disorderly conduct," said the cop to the sergeant.

"Three hundred dollars bail," said the sergeant at once, asseveratingly
and inquiringly.

"Sixty-three cents," said James Turner with a harsh laugh.

The caliph searched his pockets and collected small bills and change
amounting to four dollars.

"I am worth," he said, "forty million dollars, but--"

"Lock 'em up," ordered the sergeant.

In his cell, James Turner laid himself on his cot, ruminating. "Maybe
he's got the money, and maybe he ain't. But if he has or he ain't, what
does he want to go 'round butting into other folks's business for? When
a man knows what he wants, and can get it, it's the same as $40,000,000
to him."

Then an idea came to him that brought a pleased look to his face.

He removed his socks, drew his cot close to the door, stretched himself
out luxuriously, and placed his tortured feet against the cold bars
of the cell door. Something hard and bulky under the blankets of his
cot gave one shoulder discomfort. He reached under, and drew out a
paper-covered volume by Clark Russell called "A Sailor's Sweetheart."
He gave a great sigh of contentment.

Presently, to his cell came the doorman and said:

"Say, kid, that old gazabo that was pinched with you for scrapping seems
to have been the goods after all. He 'phoned to his friends, and he's
out at the desk now with a roll of yellowbacks as big as a Pullman car
pillow. He wants to bail you, and for you to come out and see him."

"Tell him I ain't in," said James Turner.




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