Chuck Connors walks out
to take the air--if any of these incidents or accidents takes place,
you will see the mad, irresistible rush of the "rubber" tribe to the
spot.
The importance of the event does not count. They gaze with equal
interest and absorption at a chorus girl or at a man painting a
liver pill sign. They will form as deep a cordon around a man with
a club-foot as they will around a balked automobile. They have the
furor rubberendi. They are optical gluttons, feasting and fattening
on the misfortunes of their fellow beings. They gloat and pore and
glare and squint and stare with their fishy eyes like goggle-eyed
perch at the book baited with calamity.
It would seem that Cupid would find these ocular vampires too cold
game for his calorific shafts, but have we not yet to discover an
immune even among the Protozoa? Yes, beautiful Romance descended upon
two of this tribe, and love came into their hearts as they crowded
about the prostrate form of a man who had been run over by a brewery
wagon.
William Pry was the first on the spot. He was an expert at such
gatherings. With an expression of intense happiness on his features,
he stood over the victim of the accident, listening to his groans as
if to the sweetest music. When the crowd of spectators had swelled to
a closely packed circle William saw a violent commotion in the crowd
opposite him. Men were hurled aside like ninepins by the impact of
some moving body that clove them like the rush of a tornado.
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