Night-Prowls in the Streets 97 



mentally, whatever they are morally. You 

 know, Donizetti would beat his wife, then 

 cry over his improvisations at the piano. 

 Napoleon would see the slaughter of his 

 troops unmoved, but would weep at pathos 

 in a play. If emotions controlled us in- 

 stead of ambitions and appetites, how good 

 a few of us might be ! 



Yet, we have only to turn in at the door- 

 way, and we have as good as a daylight 

 quantity of the trifling and unwise : people 

 dining, dicing, dancing, laughing, singing, 

 acting, after the fatigues of the day. Per- 

 haps they are more themselves than they 

 are at their desks and benches. It is worth 

 our while to prowl, if only to listen to the 

 sounds that come through windows : the 

 talk of company ; the crash of rifle-butts 

 on an armory floor ; the beating of mugs 

 on a table in a commers ; the wailing and 

 whining of two amateurs who suppose that 

 they are singing a duet ; the screechy mirth 

 of shop-girls at the ball of the McCabe 

 Association ; the strange snarl of a Chinese 

 fiddle in the back room of a laundry ; the 

 applause and racket as the political speaker 

 7 



