VAN BIBBER AT THE RACES


Young Van Bibber had never spent a Fourth of July in the city, as he
had always understood it was given over to armies of small boys on
that day, who sat on all the curbstones and set off fire-crackers, and
that the thermometer always showed ninety degrees in the shade, and
cannon boomed and bells rang from daybreak to midnight. He had refused
all invitations to join any Fourth-of-July parties at the seashore or
on the Sound or at Tuxedo, because he expected his people home from
Europe, and had to be in New York to meet them. He was accordingly
greatly annoyed when he received a telegram saying they would sail in
a boat a week later.

He finished his coffee at the club on the morning of the Fourth about
ten o'clock, in absolute solitude, and with no one to expect and
nothing to anticipate; so he asked for a morning paper and looked up
the amusements offered for the Fourth. There were plenty of excursions
with brass bands, and refreshments served on board, baseball matches
by the hundred, athletic meetings and picnics by the dozen, but
nothing that seemed to exactly please him.

The races sounded attractive, but then he always lost such a lot of
money, and the crowd pushed so, and the sun and the excitement made
his head ache between the eyes and spoiled his appetite for dinner. He
had vowed again and again that he would not go to the races; but as