35

"I was able to do the commissioner a favor once,and he sends me a Christmas card every year."Over thegreat bridge,with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars,with thecity rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactorymoney.The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time,in its first wildpromise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.

A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms.followed by two carriages with drawn blinds,and bymore cheerful carriages for friends.The friends looked out at us with the tragic eyes and short upper lips ofsoutheastern Europe,and I was glad that the sight of Gatsby's splendid car was included in their sombreholiday.As we crossed Blackwell's Island a limousine passed us.driven by a white chauffeur.in which satthree modish negroes.two bucks and a girl.I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward us inhaughty rivalry.

"Anything can happen now that we've slid over this bridge."I thought:"anything at all...."even Gatsbycould happen,without any particular wonder.

Roaring noon.In a well-fanned Forty-second Street cellar I met Gatsby for lunch.Blinking away thebrightness of the street outside,my eyes picked him out obscurely in the anteroom,talking to another man.

"Mr.Carraway,this is my friend Mr.Wolfshiem."A small.flat-nosed Jew raised his large head and regardedme with two fine growths of hair which luxuriated in either nostril.After a moment I discovered his tiny eyesin the half-darkness.

"So I took one look at him,"said Mr.Wolfshiem,shaking my hand earnestly,"and what do you think Idid?""What?"I inquired politely.

But evidently he was not addressing me.for he dropped my hand and covered Gatsby with his expressivenose.

"I handed the money to Katspaugh and I sid:'all right,Katspaugh.don't pay him a penny till he shuts hismouth.'He shut it then and there."Gatsby took an arm of each of us and moved forward into the restaurant.whereupon Mr.Wolfshiem swallowed a new sentence he was starting and lapsed into a somnambulatoryabstraction.

"Highballs?"asked the head waiter.

"This is a nice restaurant here,"said Mr.Wolfshiem.looking at the Presbyterian nymphs on the ceiling.

"But I like across the street better!"

"Yes,highballs,"agreed Gatsby.and then to Mr.

Wolfshiem:"It's too hot over there."

"Hot and smallyes,"said Mr.Wolfshiem."but full of memories.""What place is that?"I asked.

"The old Metropole.

"The old Metropole,"brooded Mr.Wolfshiem gloomily