Burney, with expanded chest, watched his late co-plotter disappear.  Then he, too, departed, setting his face in the direction of the Bronx.

In his wake was a rank and pernicious trail of noisome smoke that brought peace to his heart and drove the birds from the roadside into the deepest thickets.

XXIII

THE CALIPH AND THE CAD

Surely there is no pastime more diverting than that of mingling, incognito, with persons of wealth and station.  Where else but in those circles can one see life in its primitive, crude state unhampered by the conventions that bind the dwellers in a lower sphere?

There was a certain Caliph of Bagdad who was accustomed to go down among the poor and lowly for the solace obtained from the relation of their tales and histories.  Is it not strange that the humble and poverty-stricken have not availed themselves of the pleasure they might glean by donning diamonds and silks and playing Caliph among the haunts of the upper world?

There was one who saw the possibilities of thus turning the tables on Haroun al Raschid.  His name was Corny Brannigan, and he was a truck driver for a Canal Street importing firm.  And if you read further you will learn how he turned upper Broadway into Bagdad and learned something about himself that he did not know before.

Many people would have called Corny a snob—­preferably by means of a telephone.  His chief interest in life, his chosen amusement, and his sole diversion after working hours, was to place himself in juxtaposition—­since he could not hope to mingle—­with people of fashion and means.

Every evening after Corny had put up his team and dined at a lunch-counter that made immediateness a specialty, he would clothe himself in evening raiment as correct as any you will see in the palm rooms.  Then he would betake himself to that ravishing, radiant roadway devoted to Thespis, Thais, and Bacchus.

For a time he would stroll about the lobbies of the best hotels, his soul steeped in blissful content.  Beautiful women, cooing like doves, but feathered like birds of Paradise, flicked him with their robes as they passed.  Courtly gentlemen attended them, gallant and assiduous.  And Corny’s heart within him swelled like Sir Lancelot’s, for the mirror spoke to him as he passed and said:  “Corny, lad, there’s not a guy among ’em that looks a bit the sweller than yerself.  And you drivin’ of a truck and them swearin’ off their taxes and playin’ the red in art galleries with the best in the land!”

And the mirrors spake the truth.  Mr. Corny Brannigan had acquired the outward polish, if nothing more.  Long and keen observation of polite society had gained for him its manner, its genteel air, and—­most difficult of acquirement—­its repose and ease.