, Inc."
Thence they went through streets of wooden houses, all grimed, and
adding their own grime from many a sooty chimney; flimsey wooden
houses of a thousand flimsy whimsies in the fashioning, built on
narrow lots and nudging one another crossly, shutting out the stingy
sunlight from one another; bad neighbors who would destroy one another
root and branch some night when the right wind blew. They were only
waiting for that wind and a cigarette, and then they would all be gone
together--a pinch of incense burned upon the tripod of the god.
Along these streets there were skinny shade-trees, and here and there
a forest elm or walnut had been left; but these were dying. Some
people said it was the scale; some said it was the smoke; and some
were sure that asphalt and "improving" the streets did it; but Bigness
was in too Big a hurry to bother much about trees. He had telegraph-
poles and telephone-poles and electric-light-poles and trolley-poles
by the thousand to take their places. So he let the trees die and
put up his poles. They were hideous, but nobody minded that; and
sometimes the wires fell and killed people--but not often enough to
matter at all.
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