Manhattan Transfer

Often, contracted words lack an apostrophe, two words are printed as one, and elipses and hyphens are used inconsistently. Words may have multiple spelling variations; all varia...

“But what could be safer than my proposition? Do you realize Mr. Perry, that at considerable personal loss I’m letting you in on the ground floor of one of the greatest real-est...

When he lit the lamps under the two chafing dishes on the serving table a smell of hot sherry and cream and lobster began to seep into the room. The air was hot, full of tinkle...

They walked up a cross street between buildinglots. At a corner the rickety half of a weatherboarded farmhouse was still standing. There was half a room with blueflowered paper...

“God you’re wonderful, Nellie.” Her head had dropped on his chest, he could feel the pungence of her tumbled hair all through him. It was dark. Snakes of light from the streetla...

The cab smells musty, goes rumbling and lurching up a wide avenue swirling with dust, through brick streets soursmelling full of grimy yelling children, and all the while the tr...

On the stairs where a brass rod held the dull crimson carpet in place on each step, Jimmy pulled off his rubbers and stuffed them into the pockets of his raincoat. With his head...

Phineas P. Blackhead was a lanky man with silver hair and a red hawkface; he slipped back into the mahogany armchair at his desk and rang an electric bell. “All right Charlie, s...

“Don’t be a fool an spend all your money,” said Emile who stood at the cracked mirror with his face screwed up, fastening the buttons in the front of a clean boiled shirt.

Bud jumped out of bed and yanked roughly at the man’s shoulder. “Come over here to the light, I want to show ye sumpen.” Bud’s own voice crinkled queerly in his ears. He strode...

General Sherman in gold interrupted her. She stopped a second to look at the Plaza that gleamed white as motherofpearl.... Yes this is Elaine Oglethorpe’s apartment.... She clim...

“Jez you’re white,” he said choking. He grabbed the hand with the bill in it and kissed it; leaning over her hand kissing it wetly he caught a glimpse of her body under the arm...

They sat down on a bench in the light. Behind them automobiles slithered with a constant hissing scuttle in two streams along the roadway. She put her hand on his knee and he co...

“I’m going to light out of it all,” said Jimmy somberly, “and go to Mexico and make my fortune.... I’m losing all the best part of my life rotting in New York.”

Joe Harland, puffing on his pipe, pulled to and bolted the wide quaking board gates. A last splash of garnet-colored sunlight was fading on the tall housewall across the excavat...

“The Zinnia Girl’s going to be an absolute knockout, Elaine, I’m telling you and that part’s just written for you. I’d enjoy working with you again, honest.... You’re so differe...

Ellen paid the taxi. Siren throbbing in an upward shriek that burst and trailed in a dull wail down the street, a fire engine went by red and gleaming, then a hookandladder with...

“All right you take the girl home.... No harm done, just a little nervous attack, see? No cause for alarm,” McNiel was shouting in the voice of a man speaking from a soapbox. Th...

Mr. Snow sniffed. “There’s no great acting any more: Booth, Jefferson, Mansfield ... all gone. Nowadays it’s all advertising; actors and actresses are put on the market like pat...

“Gosh George dont get nervous, it’s all right.... I’ve seen her in The Zinnia Girl.... She walks away with it. That other girl who’s the star dont have a show.”

Captain James Merivale D.S.C. lay with his eyes closed while the barber’s padded fingers gently stroked his chin. The lather tickled his nostrils; he could smell bay rum, hear t...

“Look here,” went on Joe angrily, “what do you think I’m givin up my time for?... Why I turned down fifty dollars a week only yesterday, aint that so, Sid? You seen me talkin to...

When he stretched his legs out under the table he touched her feet. She drew them away. Jimmy could feel his jaws chewing, they clanked so loud under his cheeks he thought Ellie...

“Yeh, looks like they all got the same idear at the same time.” They stand looking out through the glass partition at the endless files of people jostling in and out of the subw...

“What the hell’s an import and export firm got to do in politics? If any of those guys wants a handout let him come up here and get it. Our business is the price of beans ... an...

“Oh you darlings,” she cried and threw her arms round them both at once. “Hester said you wouldnt come but I just knew you would.... Come wight in and take off your things, we’r...

He sat in Washington Square, pink with noon, looking up Fifth Avenue through the arch. The fever had seeped out of him. He felt cool and tired. Another spring, God how many spri...

“How do you do Mr. Goldstein?” the reporter breezily chanted as he squeezed the thick flipper held out to him over the counter of the cigar store. “My name’s Brewster.... I’m wr...

“Not very comfortably.... There’s a man I know in Montreal who’ll give me a job writing society notes.... Beastly thing to do, but I can use an assumed name. Then we can trot al...

“... And now as a man and a citizen of this great city I want to say a few words to the defendants. Briefly this sort of thing has got to stop. The unalienable rights of human l...

He sits a long time waiting for a ferry in the seedy ruddy-lighted waiting room. He sits smoking happily. He cant seem to remember anything, there is no future but the foggy riv...