Which assertion, carefully considered, is a study in
tense, punctuation, and advice to strangers.
Of all kinships it is likely that the closest is that of cousin. Between
cousins there exist the ties of race, name, and favor--ties thicker
than water, and yet not coagulated with the jealous precipitations of
brotherhood or the enjoining obligations of the matrimonial yoke. You
can bestow upon a cousin almost the interest and affection that you
would give to a stranger; you need not feel toward him the contempt and
embarrassment that you have for one of your father's sons--it is the
closer clan-feeling that sometimes makes the branch of a tree stronger
than its trunk.
Thus were the two McGowans bonded. They enjoyed a quiet celebrity in
their district, which was a strip west of Eighth Avenue with the Pump
for its pivot. Their talents were praised in a hundred "joints"; their
friendship was famed even in a neighborhood where men had been known to
fight off the wives of their friends--when domestic onslaught was being
made upon their friends by the wives of their friends.
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