See the landlord. Or
else move out if ye like. Have ye hippopotamuses in the lease? No,
then?"
"It was the old man who spoke of it," said Danny. "Likely there's
nothing in it."
Danny walked up the street to the Avenue and then struck northward into
the heart of the district where Easter--modern Easter, in new, bright
raiment--leads the pascal march. Out of towering brown churches came the
blithe music of anthems from the choirs. The broad sidewalks were moving
parterres of living flowers--so it seemed when your eye looked upon the
Easter girl.
Gentlemen, frock-coated, silk-hatted, gardeniaed, sustained the
background of the tradition. Children carried lilies in their hands. The
windows of the brownstone mansions were packed with the most opulent
creations of Flora, the sister of the Lady of the Lilies.
Around a corner, white-gloved, pink-gilled and tightly buttoned, walked
Corrigan, the cop, shield to the curb. Danny knew him.
"Why, Corrigan," he asked, "is Easter? I know it comes the first time
you're full after the moon rises on the seventeenth of March--but why?
Is it a proper and religious ceremony, or does the Governor appoint it
out of politics?"
"'Tis an annual celebration," said Corrigan, with the judicial air of
the Third Deputy Police Commissioner, "peculiar to New York.
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