A motorman clanged his
bell wildly and, for once in his life, corroborated a cab-driver. A
large lady in a changeable silk waist dug an elbow into his back, and
a newsy pensively pelted him with banana rinds, murmuring, "I hates
to do it--but if anybody seen me let it pass!"
Cal Harkness, his day's work over and his express wagon stabled,
turned the sharp edge of the building that, by the cheek of
architects, is modelled upon a safety razor. Out of the mass of
hurrying people his eye picked up, three yards away, the surviving
bloody and implacable foe of his kith and kin.
He stopped short and wavered for a moment, being unarmed and sharply
surprised. But the keen mountaineer's eye of Sam Folwell had picked
him out.
There was a sudden spring, a ripple in the stream of passers-by and
the sound of Sam's voice crying:
"Howdy, Cal! I'm durned glad to see ye."
And in the angles of Broadway, Fifth Avenue and Twenty-third Street
the Cumberland feudists shook hands.
XV
ROSES, RUSES AND ROMANCE
Ravenel--Ravenel, the traveller, artist and poet, threw his magazine
to the floor. Sammy Brown, broker's clerk, who sat by the window,
jumped.
"What is it, Ravvy?" he asked. "The critics been hammering your stock
down?"
"Romance is dead," said Ravenel, lightly. When Ravenel spoke lightly
he was generally serious. He picked up the magazine and fluttered its
leaves.
"Even a Philistine, like you, Sammy," said Ravenel, seriously (a tone
that insured him to be speaking lightly), "ought to understand.
Pages:
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119