How Much Do You Tip Cabbies?

Andrea Mohin/The New York Times How much do you tip your taxi driver?

“If you tip a taxi driver less than 12½ percent of the amount of your fare you will be shortchanging him, in the opinion of Edward Corsi, State Industrial Commissioner.” So reported The New York Times in 1947.

Riders today might be more generous than they were back then, but tipping has not kept pace with fares, as my colleague Matt Flegenheimer reports.

The city's Taxi and Limousine Commission found tha t the average passenger paying by credit card had tipped about 15.5 percent since the fares went up over the summer, down from about 17 percent in 2011 and 2010, and from 22 percent in 2009.

Some riders might be “tipping less to minimize the increase in overall cost since the fare increase,” said Michael Lynn, a Cornell University professor of consumer behavior and marketing, while others might be proponents of a flat tip not tethered to the amount on the meter.

But what is the appropriate amount to give, and under what conditions?

Peter Post, the managing director of the Emily Post Institute and the author of “Essential Manners for Men,” said his rule of thumb was to “start with 15 pe rcent and then round up.”

Mr. Post offers a dollar or two extra for a driver who helps him with luggage and more for the driver who sails up Third Avenue from downtown Manhattan instead of taking the F.D.R. to make a flight from La Guardia Airport. “You also want to think about how you round up so you don't end up worrying about part of a dollar,” he added. “I'm not going to give him $3.50.”

USA Today, evoking what many New Yorkers may believe is a bygone era, recommends tipping above the customary 15 percent to 20 percent for a cabdriver who offers “insider advice, such as where to go for extra-cheap drinks or the best time to see a particularly popular place.”

So how much do you tip? Have you been giving less to your cabdriver since the rates went up, and if so, why?

Hell\'s Kitchen, 1:52 P.M.

Damon Winter/The New York Times

Suspect in Fatal Subway Push Accused of Hitting Correction Officer

A woman accused of fatally pushing a man into the path of a subway train assaulted a female correction officer shortly after arriving at a hospital emergency room in Queens, a city official said on Wednesday.

The woman, Erika Menendez, 31, apparently grew agitated on Monday after she caught a glimpse of herself on the television news in the emergency room at Elmhurst Hospital Center, according to Robin Campbell, a spokesman for the New York City Correction Department.

“She was emerging from a bathroom when she became upset at seeing herself on the television, and she lashed out at the officer,” Mr. Campbell wrote in an e-mail on Wednesday. “She pulled the officer's hair and, in the process, hit her face.”

A second correction officer quickly intervened, grabbing Ms. Menendez's arm and quelling the attack. Ms. Menendez was handcuffed at the time, Mr. Campbell said.

He described the episode as “an assault,” but said the officer was not injured and no charges would be filed against Ms. Menendez.

Ms. Menendez was transferred to Elmhurst from the Rikers Island jail after a judge ordered her to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

During her arraignment on Saturday, the judge, Gia L. Morris, reprimanded Ms. Menendez for smiling and laughing during the hearing. Ms. Menendez has a history of mental illness and violent behavior, according to relatives and the police.

Ms. Menendez, of Rego Park, Queens, was arraigned on a charge of second-degree murder as a hate crime in the death of Sunando Sen, an Indian immigrant. The police said she shoved Mr. Sen, 46, into an oncoming No. 7 train at the 40th Street-Lowery Street station in Sunnyside, Queens, last Thursday.

According to prosecutors, Ms. Menendez told investigators, “I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers.”

Defying Gravity: \'Wicked\' Soars to Broadway Box Office Record

The blockbuster musical “Wicked” set a new box office record for all of Broadway last week, grossing $2,947,172 for nine performances between Christmas and New Year's Eve, using $300 premium tickets to edge out the previous all-time record set by “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” last season.

The now-widespread practice of charging premium prices to the hordes of holiday tourists helped at least eight other Broadway shows set records at their theaters last week, the most lucrative time of the year for commercial productions. Among them were “The Phantom of the Opera” with $1,751,458, a hardy accomplishment given that the show has held more than 10,000 performances and is celebrating its 25th anniversary on Broadway this mon th. (To be sure, “Phantom” tends to boom only when tourists are in town.)

The other musicals that announced new records were, in order from the highest gross, “The Lion King,” “The Book of Mormon,” “Annie,” “A Christmas Story,” “Once,” “Newsies,” and “Rock of Ages.” The Al Pacino-led revival of the play “Glengarry Glen Ross” set a new record of $1.23 million for just seven performances, meanwhile.

“Wicked” also ended 2012 as the highest-grossing Broadway show for the ninth consecutive year, according to a statement from the show's press representative. The musical, a sort of “Wizard of Oz” prequel focusing on the witches, has held that No. 1 title since 2004, its first full year running on Broadway.

The previous single-week record by “Spider-Man” was $2,941,794; last week, by comparison, the show grossed $2,716,990.

Not all shows fared well this holiday season. Several plays, which are generally less pop ular with tourists than musicals, had seats to spare, including “Picnic,” “The Other Place,” “Dead Accounts,” “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “The Heiress.”

Overall Broadway musicals and plays grossed $37.44 million last week, compared to $37.66 million during the same week last season.

Stay Tuned: A Self-Published Book About TV Gets a Major Publishing Pick-Up

Jake Guevara/The New York Times “The Revolution Was Televised,” a book by the television critic Alan Sepinwall.

In the course of chronicling the modern-day history of television, the author Alan Sepinwall has made a bit of history himself, becoming the rare self-published author to be picked up by a major press. On Wednesday, it was announced that the Touchstone imprint of Simon & Schuster had acquired his well-regarded book “The Revolution Was Televised,” which Mr. Sepinwall put out late last year.

In this book (which is subtitled “The Cops, Crooks, Slingers and Slayers Who Changed TV Drama Forever”) Mr. Sepinwall , a television critic for the Web site hitfix.com, looks at the impact that shows like “The Sopranos” and “Mad Men” and show runners like David Chase and Matthew Weiner have had in reinvigorating the hour-long dramatic format. Reviewing “The Revolution Was Televised” for The New York Times in December, Michiko Kakutani wrote that Mr. Sepinwall combined “smart, fair-minded assessments meant to provoke discussion” and interviews with creative talent, producers and executives to provide “a terrific book”; she also named it one of her 10 favorite books of 2012.

As with many of the TV success stories he writes about, Mr. Sepinwall encountered several “no”s before he finally h eard “yes.”

Mr. Sepinwall said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that Touchstone had been one of the publishers he met with when he was shopping his proposal for “The Revolution Was Televised” about a year ago, though the project was turned down then.

“The proposal wound up being a little bit different from the book I wrote, and so I don't necessarily blame them for passing at the time,” said Mr. Sepinwall, who planned to draw mostly from reporting he had already done on his site.

“When I got mostly rejections and one sort-of offer that I wasn't crazy about it, I decided I'm going to go this route,” he said, referring to his strategy to self-publish the book. “The next thing I knew, I was doing fresh interviews with everybody â€" I'm not exactly sure how I had time to do that.”

After his book was reviewed in The Times and elsewhere, Mr. Sepinwall said he was contacted again by Touchstone, which was now interested in acquiring i t.

“I like the idea that the book could exist in brick-and-mortar stores, could be on college syllabi,” he said. “I was pleased with the idea of being able to go back to the very beginning of the project.” He declined to provide exact sales figures for the book's self-published release but said they were “well beyond my wildest expectations.”

Lauren Spiegel, an editor at Touchstone who acquired “The Revolution Was Televised” for the imprint, said of Mr. Sepinwall, “I was already in the bag for him, and have been such a fan for a long time.”

Touchstone is planning its release of “The Revolution Was Televised” “as soon as we can,” she said, with a paperback edition planned for the early spring and an e-book edition possibly coming earlier.

\'Rebecca\' Producer Hopes For Broadway Run in 2013

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times Ben Sprecher

The New York producer of the scandal-plagued musical “Rebecca” said on Wednesday that he would try to open the show later this year on Broadway, where a planned production fell apart this fall when several investors were revealed to be concoctions of a rain-making middleman.

The “Rebecca” producer, Ben Sprecher, said in an interview that he was optimistic he would finally be able to raise all the money to mount the musical â€" in part because of the widespread publicity and notoriety surrounding the show after the fraud scheme was revealed.

“As a property ‘Rebecca' is more valuable today than it was six months ago, through no fault of our own,” Mr. Sprecher said. “It's just so much more visible now.”

The incentive for Mr. Sprecher to bring the show to Broadway is strong, not least because of the financial liability he faces if the show never arrives in New York.

Mr. Sprecher said he has negotiated an extension of his contractual rights to mount the show on Broadway â€" he now has until the end of 2013 â€" and has also amended the producing partnership agreement with his investors. Under the previous agreement, Mr. Sprecher's company had been liable for $7 million owed to investors and third parties involved with “Rebecca” because the show had not opened as planned; the new agreement, according to Mr. Sprecher's lawyer, Ronald G. Russo, gives Mr. S precher and his producing partner, Louise Forlenza, until the end of 2013 to open the show on Broadway and avoid having to refund investments to the show's backers.

Those backers are now in the process of approving the amended partnership agreement, Mr. Russo and Mr. Sprecher said on Wednesday; so far all of them have said they intend to do so, according to the two men. Several investors in “Rebecca” did not return phone and e-mail messages on Wednesday.

Mr. Sprecher said he was now trying to raise at least $4.5 million in additional money to stage the show on Broadway. That $4.5 million fell through in August and September after an extraordinary fraud scheme collapsed. Mr. Sprecher had been relying on a middleman, Mark C. Hotton, a former stockbroker from Long Island, to raise the $4.5 million last year for a planned Novem ber production on Broadway.

According to Mr. Sprecher, Mr. Hotton told him that he had four investors who would provide the money; Mr. Sprecher never met the four, however, and they turned out to be phantoms. Federal authorities began investigating the alleged fraud scheme after the New York Times reported in September that there was no evidence of the existence of one of Mr. Hotton's investors, Paul Abrams, who supposedly died of malaria in London in August.

Federal authorities arrested Mr. Hotton in October and charged him with scheming against the “Rebecca” producers by making up phantom investors in the show in return for fees and expenses. According to the criminal charges, Mr. Hotton collected $60,000 from the producers without bringing in any money to the show. Mr. Hotton faces a maximum prison term of 20 years for each of two counts of wire fraud if he is convicted.

Mr. Sprecher said that if “Rebecca” makes it to Broadway this fall, the prod uction would cost “a little more” than the original $12 million budget, given the costs associated with the show's delays. This marks his fourth attempt to mount “Rebecca” â€" an earlier plan in London fell through, followed by attempts to open on Broadway last spring and again two months ago. Despite these delays, Mr. Sprecher said that the production's director, Michael Blakemore, and creative team were still on board for a Broadway outing. Mr. Blakemore did not immediately reply to a phone message on Wednesday.

Man Shot by Police in Fort Greene, Brooklyn

A 40-year-old man was shot in the chest by the police in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, Wednesday afternoon, the authorities said.

The man was taken to Kings County Hospital Center; his condition was not immediately available. The shooting occurred around 3:30 p.m. at 48 Fort Greene Place, a vacant brick townhouse between Fulton and DeKalb Avenues, half a block from Fort Greene Park.

American Ballet Theater Announces Dancer Exchange

American Ballet Theater and two European dance companies are engaging in a little trans-oceanic swapping. Kevin McKenzie, the artistic director of Ballet Theater, announced the company would send the principal dancer Cory Stearns off to the Royal Ballet in December and the soloist Isabella Boylston to dance in the Royal Danish Ballet's production of the “Nutcracker,” also in December. In return, a Royal Ballet principal dancer, Stephen McRae, and a principal from the Danish company, Alban Lendorf, will dance in the 2013 spring season at American Ballet Theater. Mr. McRae will dance the role of Lankendem in “Le Corsaire” at the June 5 matinee and June 8 evening performances. Mr. Lendorf will dance the role of Prince Désiré in “The Sleeping Beauty” at the July 6 matinee.

Readers Divided on News Site\'s Map of Gun Permit Holders

When a newspaper in Westchester County, N.Y., published a map online last month showing the names and addresses of local pistol permit holders, a flood of nationwide criticism (and a counter-flood of support) ensued. Many gun owners objected to the information being published, though it is publicly available, and now, officials in Putnam County, N.Y., are refusing to release pistol-permit records to the paper, The Journal News.

A post here on City Room about the controversy drew its own outpouring of more than 1,000 comments, with our readers close to evenly split between the pro and con camps. (We did not do a full tally, but we looked at the first 100 and the most recent 100 comments that were easily classifiable and found that 52 percent supported The Journal News's publication of the map and 48 percent opposed it.)

Here's a small sample of the discourse. Some comments have been excerpted, but the full text can be read by clicking on the name of the commenter.

We who choose not to own guns have the right to know when we are sending our children into a house where guns are present or when we're speaking with someone who has deadly force easily within reach. Thanks to the Journal News for bringing this into sharper focus. If gun-owners feel somehow stigmatized by this, they need to grow a slightly tougher skin to match the heat they're packing.Robert Croog, Chevy Chase, Md

Incredible stupidity on the part of the journalists! Yes, the records are public but most criminals are not going to be online looking to see if a particular address has an owner with a gun. It is nobody's damn business if I own a gun! The whole point of being a registered owner is: #1-to own the gun legally and be trained in its use, #2-to protect myself and my property from criminals. I do not want them to know I have that gun; I want it to come as a complete surprise to them when they break into my home and I blow them away.Osakarose, San Antonio

I am a retired police officer, firearms instructor and resident of Westchester County. The Journal Tabloid News has crossed the bounds of common sense and ethics.

TJTN will be responsible for any harm that comes to the crime victims; victims of domestic abuse, crime witnesses; public servants; and licensed pistol permit holders and their families. Innocent, law-abiding individuals, including children.

Hit them where they hurt. Cancel subscription and urge others to do the same.PSNSNY, NS, N.Y.

Newspapers don't burglarize homes. People do.
Flint, St. Pete, FL

If you own a gun why are you ashamed that others know? If it is a guaranteed right why are you ashamed that others know? Maybe there is some courage lacking in your conviction?
Mary Bullock, Staten Island, N.Y.

My w ife and I have carry permits. We have a large sign that says “beware of gun owners.” Forget the dog.Name Withheld for Obvious Reasons, USA

Second Amendment, meet First Amendment.Ted, Brooklyn

Bravo to the journalist for collating the map and the editor for approving and defending its publication. Power to the media, for taking up a cause that legislators are placing low on their priority list.SP, Melbourne, Australia

I own a handgun. I have held a permit to carry a concealed handgun for the past 25 years. I vote. I am f emale. There are five parcels of land that adjoin mine in the city of Hoover, Alabama. I know for a fact that four of those homes have handguns in them - because I know my neighbors, not because of some map of those who hold permits.

If you know your neighbors and the parents of your child's friends and you are not a person who believes that the average American should have a handgun or rifle in their home (which is a legal right), then don't allow your child to go there. Invite their children over to your house instead.Frannie Butler, Alabama

Why not make a map of people convicted of firearm-related felonies? Registered gun owners are, by definition, in compliance with the law. Dan, Conn.

No need for names and addresses. The little dots all over the map make the point well enough.Celia, Oswego, N.Y.

Criminals know which homes to skip, well done. Or they know which homes to break into if nobody is home.Momus, Out West

Seems like the gun owners would welcome this. Isn't one of their main arguments that criminals would not go somewhere that they know is “protected” by a citizen with a gun.LSB, New Mexico

I think it is fascinating. To have a visual reference for gun-distribution really pu ts things in perspective. There are a LOT of guns. I just wish I knew why.Marie, Brooklyn

I'll bet that at least 90% of these gun toters thought it was a wonderful idea to post the names of physicians who perform abortions and call them baby killers, which fomented violent and fatal assaults. Now that it's their ox being gored, the whining of gun toters can be heard all the way to NRA headquarters.Michaelira, New Jersey

What has happened to the left that I used to be a proud member? This has nothing to do with protecting your children or helping public safety. This is pure revenge on a group the left despises … the NRA. The comments are beyond the pale in their stereotypin g and demonizing these people. Just because someone might have a permit, doesn't mean they have a gun or even belong to or support the NRA. Maybe the person is in law enforcement, maybe the person is an abused wife, wanting protection.Michael, N.Y.C.

I'm clearly in the anti-gun camp but the publication of the names and addresses in this format is unnecessarily antagonistic and will lead to the ostracization of some gun owners in this part of the country (a badge of honor in another part), 99 of 100 of them responsible license holders.Roberts, Boston

Hopefully this is just a beginning of a national map.Phil Morse, Cambridge, Mass.

We, on the left, objected loudly when the names and addresses of doctors who perform abortions were made public. Are our ethics so situational that we now embrace the tactics of our opponents? How sad for us.
Fred G., Iowa City

When the sacred Second Amendment is in question, with its implied right to own an assault rifle, the gun owners get all up in arms (no pun intended), but when a newspaper exercises its First Amendment rights by publishing public record, they want these rights restricted. RN, NYC

Not all people who have pistol permits are conservative NRA me mbers. My husband is a retired detective who chose to continue to carry a gun after he retired because he felt that if he was in a situation where he could prevent someone from harming another person and didn't have a weapon, he could not forgive himself. He opposes the NRA and their frankly anti-police stances since the proliferation of police shootings have much to do with the lack of gun and ammunition control. We are both liberals, and I have never voted for a Republican or conservative in my life. However, I am appalled that the Journal News thought it was proper to publish this interactive website so that anyone my husband has ever arrested can see where we live and that anyone looking to steal a gun to commit a crime has an easy road map as to where to do it. The fact that it is public information is not quite the same as publishing it in a manner that makes it easily accessible to all.CPF, Westchester, NY

Rather than feel safe, it frightened me to know that my next-door neighbor has a gun.Guido, NY

I'm a parent. I'd like to know if I'm sending my kid to play at a house with a gun. Along the lines of creating a map of gun owners for me to use as a resource, I'd appreciate it if the Journal News could also publish interactive maps (names and addresses) of the following:
-Homes with a history of infectious diseases (and what they were)
-Homes with unregistered guns
-Homes with people who have been arrested
-Homes with alcohol
-Homes with legal prescription narcotics
-Homes with family history of mental disorder.

This would make me much safer and do more good protecting my kid than the existing lega l gun map.Joey Chittwood, NY, NY

Bobby Womack Says Alzheimer\'s Could Be Cause of Memory Loss

The soul singer Bobby Womack has told a London newspaper that he is suffering from memory loss that could signal the onset of Alzheimer's disease. Mr. Womack, 68, told The Sun that he struggles to remember his own songs and the names of other musicians.

“The doctor says there are signs of Alzheimer's,” he said. “It's not bad yet but will get worse.” During the Q Awards ceremony in October in Britain, at which he received the best album award for “The Bravest Man in the Universe,” Mr. Womack referred to his producer and friend Damon Albarn as “Damon Osbourne.”

In general, the singer has been in precarious health. In 2011 he underwent surgery for prostate cancer. Then, in the spring of 2012, he was hospitalized with pneumonia and underwent surgery to remove a benign tumor from his colon.

All-Star Lineup to Honor Springsteen at Benefit Concert

Elton John, Neil Young and the folk-rock band Mumford & Sons will be among more than a dozen acts who will celebrate the music of Bruce Springsteen at the MusiCares benefit concert in Los Angeles next month, the Recording Academy announced on Wednesday.

Jon Stewart, the comedian, will host the event, which will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Feb. 8, two nights before the Grammy Awards ceremony. Mr. Springsteen is being feted as the MusiCares “Person of the Year,” an honor given to performers who stand out not only for their music but also for their philanthropy. The concert's proceeds go to programs run by the MusiCares Foundation, a charity established in 1989 by the Recording Academy that helps musicians facing drug addiction, health problems and financial troubles.

The performers, most of whom will be in town for the Grammys, will peform songs fr om Mr. Springsteen's catalog. Others scheduled to appear include Juanes, Alabama Shakes, Jackson Browne, Patti Smith, Mavis Staples, Sting and Eddie Vedder.

The Whole Nine Yards, Continued ...

Last week's article about recent discoveries relating to the origins of the mysterious phrase “the whole nine yards” drew a huge number of online comments, most of them from people whose certainty about their own pet theories was matched only by their total lack of supporting evidence.

A number of readers simply repeated old canards about the length of traditional saris (or Scottish kilts), the contents of cement trucks, and the quantity of sails on traditional masted ships. No one explained how any of these theories jibed with the recent discovery of a “whole six yards” variant in a Kentucky newspaper in the 1910s (some four decades before the appearance of “the whole nine yards”), or why, for example, an expression that derived from saris or kilts would be totally unknown in British and Indian sources.

True, one antique d ealer from Eugene, Ore., did call in to say she owned an old bolt of cloth that would settle the matter once and for all. But the spirit of the response was best summed up by Ray from Seattle who, after repeating the (now disproved) theory that the expression derives from the length of ammunition belts in World War II-era aircraft, declared: “That's my conviction - and I'm sticking to it!”

Some readers did try to inject a bit of hard textual evidence into the debate. Several mentioned “The Judge's Big Shirt,” a humorous anecdote that appeared in several newspapers in 1855 (and findable on Google Books), in which a seamstress charged with making three shirts mistakenly uses “the whole nine yards” of cloth to make one huge one instead.

But Fred Shapiro, the Yale Law School librarian who announced the recent discovery of the “six yard” variant, said via e-mail that this anecdote was well known to lexicographers, and was clearly unrelated to the figurative phrase that emerged later.

He was somewhat more intrigued by two occurrences in The Brooklyn Eagle, submitted via e-mail by Joseph Halpern, a lawyer in Denver. One, from 1873, jokingly describes the politician Samuel J. Tilden writing “a brief and pithy letter nine yards long.” Another, from 1902, poked fun at another politician who “disappointed the galleries with pithy speeches six yards long.”

Those instances, Mr. Shapiro said, “seem like they may have some relation to the expression ‘the whole nine yards,'” which in its earliest uses (including the “six yards” variant) referred to the full extent of a story or other information. “But probably what we have here is just a hyperbolic usage of the word ‘yard' (documented by the Oxford English Dictionary as far back as Chaucer) plus various numbers attached to it,” he added.

Mr. Shapiro said he had little faith that any discovery would sway people from their favorite folk etymology. And pop culture does have a way of blithely ignoring the latest scientific research if it gets in the way of a good story. This year's Oscar for faultiest etymology surely goes to “Silver Linings Playbook,” in which Bradley Cooper's character delivers a ringing monologue declaring that “O.K.” derives from Martin Van Buren's nickname, Old Kinderhook (he was born in Kinderhook, N.Y.).

Unfortunately, that explanation - along with ones involving the Choctaw word “okeh,” Andrew Jackson's bad spelling, and a biscuit-maker named Orin Kendall - was disproved nearly 50 years ago by the lexicographer Allen Walker Read, who established through extensive reading in newspapers that it was part of an 1830s fad for humorous abbreviations, in which “Oll Korrect” became “O.K.”

Allmans Announce Beacon Theater Dates for 2013

Danny Clinch Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers Band.

The tumbling over of a new year on the ol' chronometer arrives with some familiar traditions: the declaration of life-improving resolutions for the months to come, the illusion that one might hit the gym more often than in years past and the announcement of dates for the Allman Brothers Band's residency at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan.

As has been the almost-annual custom of that long-lived rock band (we'll overlook that unfortunate year when the group was denied its familiar performance space to make way for Cirque du Soleil), the Allman Brothers Band will return t o the Beacon for 10 shows in March, its press representatives said on Wednesday. The group, led by the keyboardist and singer Gregg Allman, is scheduled to perform there on March 1 and 2; 5 and 6; 8 and 9; 12 and 13; and 15 and 16. Tickets for these shows will go on sale Jan. 11 at 10 am, and can be purchased online at ticketmaster.com and beacontheatre.com.

Of course, none of the surprise guests who typically join the Allmans at these performances were announced. But the band is slated to perform on April 12 and 13 at Eric Clapton's Crossroads benefit shows at Madison Square Garden, so maybe Mr. Clapton will return the favor?

A Hidden Warrior in the Park

Dear Diary:

I took an early evening walk around Carl Schurz Park on the Upper East Side in mid-November and ran into a guy I recognized but did not know well. We started talking. He was walking a friend's Jack Russell terrier. As we talked, the terrier passed the time sniffing around the bottom of a city trash can, as most dogs enjoy doing.

Eventually, the conversation got to the point of asking each other what we did for a living. He told me that he bought old art and then tried to resell it. Just as he said that, the Jack Russell tugged the leash, and our attention went to the dog and the trash can.

He noticed something on top of the can, put his hand in and withdrew a small statue of an American Indian ready for battle, with his war face on and his bow and arrow drawn.

“This is what I do,” he said. “I find stuff like this.”

We were both amazed.

He handed it to me; it was heavy. “I think it's bronze,” I said. “This is really nice - you should take it.”

“It's kind of weird,” he said; “it's probably junk.”

I said, “I think it's cool; if you don't want it, I'll take it.”

Well, he said. “Maybe I can get 50 bucks for it at the junk shop on 88th and First, the place with no sign.”

“I think it's worth more,” I said, “but good luck with it.”

The next morning I got an e-mail thanking me for encouraging him to take “The Indian,” because he had sold it for $400. He said he owed me a dinner.

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