Chapter 22 Twenty-two, charming silhouette

There are only a handful of rich women in the world.Due to their nature, hobbies, instincts and the structure of their vocal cords, women are all masters of the story in "One Thousand and One Nights", Scheherazade.Thousands of daughters of viziers today are telling a thousand and one stories to their respective sultans.But if one of them accidentally said a word, the noose would be around the neck. I heard a story about a rich woman.The story is not exactly the same as those told in "Arabian Nights", because it introduces the character of Cinderella.She waved her dishcloth in another time and land.So, if you don't mind the reversed chronological order (which in itself adds an oriental touch to the story after all), let's get on with the story.

There is a very, very old hotel in New York.You've seen panels of this hotel in magazines.It was built to remind me a long time ago, when there were no buildings on Fourteenth Street, only a path leading to Boston and Hammerstead office buildings in the time of the Indians.It won't be long before this old hotel will be demolished.At that time, watching the thick walls being pushed down, bricks and tiles falling down the groove, making a loud rumbling sound, crowds of citizens will gather at nearby street corners, witnessing all this, wailing a kind and old The monument was destroyed.

Citizenship is very strong in New Baghdad.The man with the wettest eyes and the loudest yell at the iconoclasts (Trejo Land ancestry) has only a few sweet memories of being taken from the free sideboard of this ancient hotel in 1873. People kicked away. Maggie.Mrs. Brown was always at this hotel.She was a wizened woman of sixty, dressed in faded black, carrying a bag apparently made of the skin of what Adam had decided to call an alligator.She took a room with a small sitting room on the top floor of the hotel for two dollars a day.As long as she lived there, she was always in a hurry, meeting the many men who came to see her, always tense and sad, and had only a few seconds to spare.You know, Maggie.Brown is said to be the third richest woman in the world, and these anxious men are nothing more than the richest stockbrokers and entrepreneurs in this city, all wanting to get around five or six million dollars from this dirty woman with a prehistoric bag small loan.

The name of the shorthand and typist at the Acropolis Hotel (oh! I forgot to mention the name just now!) is Ida.Miss Bates.She is simply the rebirth of the ancient Greek goddess of beauty.There was not a single flaw in her appearance.A veteran in the field of love once said this when he praised a woman: To love her is to have received an artistic influence.Yes, just to look at Miss Bates' black hair and white shirt waist was like taking a whole course at any correspondence school in the country.She sometimes helps me type too.Since she refused to accept payment in advance, she also slowly came to see me as a friend or protector or something.She has a very kind heart and a good temper.In front of her, not even a pencil salesman or a furrier would dare to go one step further.All the staff of Acropolis, from the boss who lives in Vienna to the porter who has been bedridden for sixteen years, are willing to fight to protect her at any time.

One day I passed Miss Bates' sanctuary, where the Remington typewriter was kept, but she was not there, replaced by a black-haired mass, unmistakably human, tapping the keyboard with two forefingers.At that time, I was still thinking about the changes in the world, so I walked through it without thinking much.From the next day I began my fortnight's vacation, and when I came back I strode through the hall of the Acropolis Hotel, saw Miss Bates again, and felt in my heart the warmth of an old friend reunited.She was, as always, beautiful, gentle, and flawless.At this moment she was putting the holster on the typewriter.It was closing time, but she invited me in to sit in the dictation chair and chat with her for a few minutes.Miss Bates explained why she left Acropolis for a while and then returned.What she said was identical or largely identical to the following account:

By the way, how is the story written? It was the same, I said, and what was written was roughly equal to what was returned. Unfortunately, she said, to publish a story, clear printing is the key.You must really miss me, right? Of course, I say, there is no one I know who is as orderly as you are at keeping your buckles neatly fastened, your semicolons and words spaced evenly, and your hotel guests as attentive as you are. Come on, pin your hair up nicely.But you also left for a while.The other day I saw a packet of digestives sitting in your place. If you hadn't diverted the conversation, said Miss Bates, I was going to tell you about it.

Of course you know Maggie, Brown.She rented a room here.Yes, she's worth forty million dollars.She lived in a ten-dollar apartment in Jersey.She has plenty of cash on hand at all times, more than half a dozen vice-presidential candidates carry.I don't know if she puts money in her socks, but I do know that she's famous in an urban area where money is god. Mrs. Brown stopped at this door about two weeks ago, and craned her neck to look at me for ten minutes.I'm sitting here sideways to her, doing some copper quotations for a nice old man from Donobah.But I can see everything around me.When I'm working hard, I can see through my hairpins.I can leave a button on the back of my shirt unbuttoned and see who's behind it.With eighteen to twenty dollars a week, I didn't have time to look around, and I didn't have to look around.

When I got off work that night, she brought a letter asking me to go upstairs to her room.I expected to type a two thousand word promissory note, garnishment, contract, and tip of a dime: but I did.Oh, I was really taken aback.Old Maggie.Brown has become very human. Child, she said, you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.I want you to quit your job and come live with me.I have no friends or relatives, she said, just a husband and a son or two, but I keep no contact with them.They are a luxury baggage on a hard working woman.I want you to be my daughter.People say I'm mean.There were also lies in the newspapers, saying that I cook and wash my own clothes.It was a lie, she went on, and I took my clothes out to the wash, and I only washed my handkerchiefs, socks, petticoats, collars, and other such trinkets.I had forty million dollars in cash, stocks, and bonds that could be sold at any time, like Standard Oil preferred stock, and were very popular at church fairs.I am a lonely old woman who needs company.You are the most beautiful person I have ever seen, she said, would you like to come and live with me?I want to prove to the world whether I can use money, she said.

Hey, what if you do?Of course, I said yes.Seriously, I'm starting to like old Maggie.It's not all because she has forty million dollars or what she can do for me.It's because, I'm also a little lonely in this world.Everyone needs someone to talk to about how their left shoulder hurts, or how their patent leather shoes are getting ripped and worn out so quickly.You can't tell that kind of stuff to the guys you meet in hotels and they're waiting for you to bring it up. So I quit my hotel job and went to live with Mrs. Brown.I'm clearly attracted to her.She could keep looking at me for half an hour, and I'd just sit there and read a book, or read a magazine.

I asked her once: Mrs. Brown, do I remind you of some dead relative or friend of your childhood?I find that you often visually censor me. Your face looks like the face of one of my best friends.But I like you also for your own sake, she said. Hey, guess what happened to her?Spending money is as easy as flowing water, and it is extremely generous.She took me to a wonderful fashion designer and told her to make all kinds of fashions, and the cost of outfitting me was no problem.These clothes are made urgently.The designer's wife closed the shop and put all her staff into making it. Then we moved to guess where?No; guess again Bunton Hotel.We lived in a six-room suite for a hundred dollars a day.I see the bill.I began to love the old woman.

After that, heh, custom-made clothes for me began to arrive one after another.Ah, not to mention how stylish and fashionable these clothes are!You can't get it, I started calling her Lady Maggie.You've always read the story of Cinderella.Why, those words of Cinderella when she tried on the glass shoe of size three and a half that the prince gave her are only a sad story compared with the cheerful words I said to myself when I put on my new clothes. Then Madame Maggie said she was throwing a banquet for me at the Bunton Hotel in honor of my coming of age, and she was going to have all the Dutch gentry on Fifth Avenue ride up to it. I'm out of the boudoir, Madame Maggie, I said, but I can re-enter the world once more.But you know, I say, that this is one of the grandest hotels in the city; and you also know, pardon me, that it's not easy to get a bunch of socialites together unless you've been specially trained. Don't worry about it, child, said Madam Maggie, I don't send out invitations, I only issue orders.I'm going to get fifty VIPs.It is impossible for these people to appear at any reception at the same time, unless the host is King Edward VII or William.Travers.Jerome.The guests were all men, of course, and they all owed me money, or were planning to borrow money from me.Some of them have wives who won't come, but many wives will. Oh, it's a pity you weren't there.The dinner service was all gold and cut glass.Besides Madame Maggie and I, there were about forty other gentlemen and ladies present.If you hadn't witnessed it with your own eyes, you wouldn't be able to imagine what happened to the third richest woman in the world.She was wearing a new black silk gown with so many beaded trims that it made a noise like hail.I've heard it before when I sat all night with the girl who lived in the studio on the top floor. Let's talk about my dress!Oh, I don't need to waste my words with you.The lace is all handmade. Where there is lace, the clothes cost three hundred dollars.I have seen the bill.The men who came were all bald, with white beards on their cheeks.They were all witty and eloquent, talking about three per cent bonds and Bryan and cotton production. The guy on the left of me talks like a banker or something.Sitting on the right is a young man, he said he is the art editor of the newspaper.He's the only one. Oh, I was just about to tell you. After the party, Mrs. Brown and I went upstairs to our rooms.A large group of reporters was crowded in the hall, and we had to squeeze through the crowd for a long time before we could get out.This is also the result of money.Hey, do you know a newspaper art editor named Lathrop?Tall, beautiful eyes, easy to speak.I forgot which newspaper he belonged to.forget it. Upstairs, Mrs. Brown immediately called for the bill.When the bill came, it cost six hundred dollars.Madam Maggie fainted when she saw the bill.I got her onto the couch and took off the necklace. Boy, she said to me when she came to, what bill?Is it a rent increase or an income tax? Just that little supper, I said, take it easy, a drop in the Stock Exchange at best.Sit up and look, if nothing else, it must be a notice of dispossession. Hey, what do you think Maggie Maggie is doing?She was terrified!At nine o'clock the next morning, she pushed me out of the Bunton Hotel.We moved to a studio apartment in the south of the West End, and we rented a room with light leaks downstairs and upstairs.After the move, the whole room was a pile of trendy clothes worth about fifteen hundred dollars and a single-burner gas stove. Madame Maggie suddenly tiptoed.Maybe everyone has one or two crazy and unrestrained moments in their lives.Men are crazy about drinking, women are crazy about buying clothes.But if I had forty million dollars in my hand, well, I'd take a picture of it, and speaking of pictures, have you ever met a newspaper art editor named Lathrop?A tall guy. Oh, I've asked, right?He was very nice to me at the banquet.His voice sounded very comfortable.I think he must have thought I was going to inherit some of Maggie's money. Well, man, three days of light housework is enough for me.Madam Maggie was as sweet as ever to me.She hardly let me out of her sight.But you have to know that she is a miser from the miserly village in the miserly district.Seventy-five cents was her daily spending limit.We cook our own meals in the room.That's it, I'm a thousand-dollar couture while I'm performing cooking acrobatics on a single-burner gas stove. Well, on the third day, I just walked away.I couldn't bear the life of stewing kidneys for a quarter on the stove while wearing a hundred and fifty dollar jacket with French Valencia lace.So I opened my closet and put on the cheapest dress Mrs. Brown bought me, which is the seventy-five dollars I'm wearing right now, okay?I put the rest at my sister's in Brooklyn. Mrs. Brown, former Madam Maggie, I said to her, I wanted to stretch my legs staggered, one after the other, in the proper manner and direction, to make this house recede from me as quickly as possible.I'm not a money god, I said, but there are some things I can't stand.I've read about the legendary behemoth monster that can smash both hot birds and cold bottles in one fell swoop.I can tolerate this kind of monster, but I can't tolerate a cowardly person. I said, people say you have forty million dollars, and you will never lose a penny.I was already beginning to like you.I said. Oh, the former Maggie Maggie heard this and complained non-stop, and she shed tears.She offered to move into a room with a two-burner gas stove and running water. I've spent a lot of money, boy, she said, and we'll have to save for a while.All my life, I have only seen you so beautiful, she said, I don't want you to leave me. No, I'll be back, you saw it too.I walked straight back to the Acropolis Hotel, asked for my job back, and got it.How is your creation going?I know how many articles you didn't make because I didn't type them for you.Did you illustrate them?Oh, by the way, do you know a newspaper art editor?Oh, I should shut up!I asked you a long time ago.I wonder what newspaper he works for?It was so funny, but I couldn't help thinking that he wouldn't take that money he thought I wanted from old Maggie.Money from Brown.If I knew a newspaper editor, I would There were light footsteps in the doorway.Date.Bates knew who it was with the back of her hairpin.I saw that she had turned crimson, that she had become a perfect sculpture, a miracle that only Pigmellon and I could share. please forgive me?She told me she was a lovely supplicant now, and it was Mr. Lathrop.I'm still wondering if it's for the money, after all, he Of course I was invited to the wedding.After the ceremony I pulled Lesrop aside. You're an artist, I said, but haven't figured out why MaggieBrown was so fond of Miss Bates?Let me show you what happened. The bride wore a simple white gown, with some ruffles, as beautiful as those of the ancient Greeks.I made a wreath of leaves from the ornamental wreath in the little parlour, and placed it in the splendid brunette hair of Miss née Bates, and made her turn her head and profile her husband. God!He said, isn't Ida's head a replica of the lady's head on the silver coin?