Is there any life so devoid of
impossibilities as life in this city? There seems to be a myriad of
opportunities for testing the undeterminable; but not one in a thousand
fails to land you where you expected it to stop. I wish the subways and
street cars disappointed one as seldom."
"The sun has risen," said Ives, "on the Arabian nights. There are
no more caliphs. The fisherman's vase is turned to a vacuum bottle,
warranted to keep any genie boiling or frozen for forty-eight hours.
Life moves by rote. Science has killed adventure. There are no more
opportunities such as Columbus and the man who ate the first oyster had.
The only certain thing is that there is nothing uncertain."
"Well," said Forster, "my experience has been the limited one of a city
man. I haven't seen the world as you have; but it seems that we view
it with the same opinion. But, I tell you I am grateful for even this
little venture of ours into the borders of the haphazard. There may
be at least one breathless moment when the bill for the dinner is
presented. Perhaps, after all, the pilgrims who traveled without scrip
or purse found a keener taste to life than did the knights of the Round
Table who rode abroad with a retinue and King Arthur's certified checks
in the lining of their helmets.
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