[A good story for one who has some power of personation, for the dudes get
little sympathy.]
A crowded car ran down the other evening. Within was a full-blown,
eye-glassed, drab-gaitered dude, apparently satisfied that he was jammed in
among an admiring community. On the rear platform a cheery young mechanic
was twitting the conductor and occasionally making a remark to a fresh
passenger. Everybody took it in good part as a case of inoffensive high
spirits, all but the dude, who evinced a strong disgust.
When the young man called out to an old gentleman, "Sit out here, guvinor,
on the back piazza," or to another, "Don't crowd there; stay where
the breezes blow," the dude looked daggers, and at last, grabbing the
conductor's elbow and indicating the young man by a nod of the head,
evidently entered a protest. Every one saw it. So did the young man, and
he gathered his wits together like a streak to finish that dude. He did
it all with an imperturbable good humor and seriousness which would carry
conviction to the most doubting.
"Well, I never!" he began, poking his head inside the doorway with an air
of comic surprise. "Jes' to see you a-sitting there, dressed up like that.
Catch on to them gaiters, will you? Ain't you got the nerve to go up and
down Broadway fixed up like that, and your poor father and mother workin'
hard at home? Ain't you 'shamed o' yourself, and your father a honest,
hard-workin' driver, and your mother a decent, respectable washwoman? Y'
ain't no good, or you wouldn't have gev up your place, and I think I'll go
look after it myself and put a decent man in it."
He stepped off the car as if bent on doing this at once, and the dude,
unable to resist the ridicule of the situation or defend the attack,
hastily stepped off after him.