So one born under the miscellaneous writer’s star who purposed to write on, say, bums he had known would quite likely begin with a disquisition upon the importance of a good shape of human ear, and very naturally would conclude, with some warmth, with a denunciation of tight trowsers.  And he would, of course, wander by the way into pleasant reminiscences of his childhood—­how, for instance, the child gets his idea of what a native is from the cuts in his geography book.  I well remember the first time I was alluded to in my presence as a native.  I was very indignant.  I knew what natives looked like from the cuts I had pored over.  They were a fine, spirited race, very picturesquely attired, mostly in bows and arrows, and as creatures of romance I admired them greatly.  Persons such as I and my parents were generally depicted in this connection as fleeing from them.  And it did strike me as an ignoramus kind of thing that I should be called a native.  When I was reasoned with to the effect that I was a native of Indiana, my resentment but grew.  There were no natives in Indiana.

Speaking of efficiency reminds me of the real estate business.  I have recently come somewhat into contact with this business and I have observed certain outstanding facts about it which I have not seen commented upon before.  To set up in the real estate business one thing above all else is necessary, that is uncommon familiarity with the word “imagination.”  If you are thinking of buying a lot you will meet a tall, fair man, or a short, dark man (as the case may be), but in any case as unimaginative-looking a man as you could readily imagine.  From this person you will learn that the thing at the bottom of every great fortune was imagination.  If the location of the lot which you view strikes you as rather a desolate and barren-looking part of the world the trouble is not with the location but with you.  Forty-second Street looked worse than that at one time.  Thus, I imagine, if you have sufficient imagination you buy the lot.

It is a remarkable thing that the most startling spectacle in New York has never struck any one but myself.  Forty-second Street puts me in mind of this.  If you were a native of the Sandwich Islands and had never before been in town and were standing at the South-East corner of Broadway and Fulton Street at nine o’clock in the morning and were facing West, you would cry out aghast at this sight:  You would see the quiet, old world grave-yard of St. Paul’s Chapel, the funereal stone urn upon its stone post marking the corner and the leaning headstones beyond.  There is no trumpet sound.  But from a mouth at the grave-yard’s side the earth belches forth a host which springs quick into the new day.  It is a remarkable spectacle to contemplate, fraught with portent and symbol, though the mouth is a subway kiosk, my Sandwich friend.