William jabbed a lady in a
black silk raglan in the ribs, kicked a boy in the shin, bit an old
gentleman on the left ear and managed to crowd nearer to Violet.
They stood for an hour looking at the man paint the letters. Then
William's love could be repressed no longer. He touched her on the
arm.
"Come with me," he said. "I know where there is a bootblack without
an Adam's apple."
She looked up at him shyly, yet with unmistakable love transfiguring
her countenance.
"And you have saved it for me?" she asked, trembling with the first
dim ecstasy of a woman beloved.
Together they hurried to the bootblack's stand. An hour they spent
there gazing at the malformed youth.
A window-cleaner fell from the fifth story to the sidewalk beside
them. As the ambulance came clanging up William pressed her hand
joyously. "Four ribs at least and a compound fracture," he whispered,
swiftly. "You are not sorry that you met me, are you, dearest?
"Me?" said Violet, returning the pressure. "Sure not. I could stand
all day rubbering with you."
The climax of the romance occurred a few days later. Perhaps the
reader will remember the intense excitement into which the city was
thrown when Eliza Jane, a colored woman, was served with a subpoena.
The Rubber Tribe encamped on the spot. With his own hands William Pry
placed a board upon two beer kegs in the street opposite Eliza Jane's
residence. He and Violet sat there for three days and nights.
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