Written in 1906 when roughly four million people lived in New York City, it opens with a reference to Ward McAllister's “assertion that there were only “400” people in New York City who were really worth noticing. To O. Henry,however, everyone in New York counted. He had an obvious affection for the city, which he called “Bagdad-on-the-Subway”.
Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied.