He was the city incarnate. He loved it, calling it God's country, as
he called the smoke Prosperity, breathing the dingy cloud with relish.
And when soot fell upon his cuff he chuckled; he could have kissed it.
"It's good! It's good!" he said, and smacked his lips in gusto.
"Good, clean soot; it's our life-blood, God bless it!" The smoke was
one of his great enthusiasms; he laughed at a committee of plaintive
housewives who called to beg his aid against it. "Smoke's what brings
your husbands' money home on Saturday night," he told them, jovially.
"Smoke may hurt your little shrubberies in the front yard some, but
it's the catarrhal climate and the adenoids that starts your chuldern
coughing. Smoke makes the climate better. Smoke means good health:
it makes the people wash more. They have to wash so much they wash
off the microbes. You go home and ask your husbands what smoke puts
in their pockets out o' the pay-roll--and you'll come around next time
to get me to turn out more smoke instead o' chokin' it off!"
It was Narcissism in him to love the city so well; he saw his
reflection in it; and, like it, he was grimy, big, careless, rich,
strong, and unquenchably optimistic.
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