25 лучших рассказов / 25 Best Short Stories

If you are a man who read this, may such an influence be sent you before 2 o’clock to-morrow; if you are a woman, may your Pomeranian[27 - Pomeranian – померанский шпиц, популярная порода карликовых собак; название породы происходит от слова Померания (историческая область на побережье Балтийского моря в северо-восточной Европе).] greet you this morning with a cold nose – a sign of dog-health and your happiness.

The Stovepipe Gang borrowed its name from a sub-district of the city called the “Stovepipe,” which is a narrow and natural extension of the familiar district known as “Hell’s Kitchen.” The “Stovepipe” strip of town runs along Eleventh and Twelfth avenues on the river, and bends a hard and sooty elbow around little, lost homeless DeWitt Clinton park. Consider that a stovepipe is an important factor in any kitchen and the situation is analyzed.

The members of this unchartered but widely known brotherhood appeared to pass their time on street corners arrayed like the lilies of the conservatory and busy with nail files and penknives. Thus displayed as a guarantee of good faith, they carried on an innocuous conversation in a 200-word vocabulary, to the casual observer as innocent and immaterial as that heard in clubs seven blocks to the east.

But off exhibition the “Stovepipes” were not mere street corner ornaments addicted to posing and manicuring. Their serious occupation was the separating of citizens from their coin and valuables. Preferably this was done by weird and singular tricks without noise or bloodshed; but whenever the citizen honored by their attentions refused to impoverish himself gracefully his objections came to be spread finally upon some police station blotter or hospital register.

The police held the “Stovepipe” gang in perpetual suspicion and respect. As the nightingale’s liquid note is heard in the deepest shadows, so along the “Stovepipe’s” dark and narrow confines the whistle for reserves punctures the dull ear of night. Whenever there was smoke in the “Stovepipe” the tasselled men in blue knew there was fire in “Hell’s Kitchen.”

“Kid” Brady promised Molly to be good.