At Ninth street a tall man wearing an opera hat alighted from a Broadway car and turned his face westward. But he saw Murray, pounced upon him and dragged him under a street light. The Captain lumbered slowly to the corner, like a wounded bear, and waited, growling.
'Jerry!' cried the hatted one. 'How fortunate! I was to begin a search for you to-morrow. The old gentleman has capitulated. You're to be restored to favor. Congratulate you. Come to the office in the morning and get all the money you want. I've liberal instructions in that respect.'
'And the little matrimonial arrangement?' said Murray, with his head turned sidewise.
'Why.--er--well, of course, your uncle under-stands--expects that the engagement between you and Miss Vanderhurst shall be'--
'Good night,' said Murray, moving away.
'You madman!' cried the other, catching his arm. 'Would you give up two millions on account of'--
'Did you ever see her nose, old man?' asked Murray, solemnly.
'But, listen to reason, Jerry. Miss Vanderhurst is an heiress, and'- -
'Did you ever see it?'
'Yes, I admit that her nose isn't'--
'Good night!' said Murray. 'My friend is waiting for me. I am quoting him when I authorize you to report that there is `nothing doing.' Good night.'
A wriggling line of waiting men extended from a door in Tenth street far up Broadway, on the outer edge of the pavement. The Captain and Murray fell in at the tail of the quivering millipede.
'Twenty feet longer than it was last night,' said Murray, looking up at his measuring angle of Grace Church.
'Half an hour,' growled the Captain, 'before we get our punk.'
The city clocks began to strike 12; the Bread Line moved forward slowly, its leathern feet sliding on the stones with the sound of a hissing serpent, as they who had lived according to their lights closed up in the rear.
'The knights are dead; Their swords are rust. Except a few who haze to hust- Le all the time To raise the dust.'
Dear Reader: It was summertime. The sun glared down upon the city with pitiless ferocity. It is difficult for the sun to be ferocious and exhibit compunction simultaneously. The heat was--oh, bother thermometers!--who cares for standard measures, anyhow? It was so hot that--
The roof gardens put on so many extra waiters that you could hope to get your gin fizz now--as soon as all the other people got theirs. The hospitals were putting in extra cots for bystanders. For when little, woolly dogs loll their tongues out and say 'woof, woof!' at the fleas that bite 'em, and nervous old black bombazine ladies screech 'Mad dog!' and policemen begin to shoot, somebody is going to get hurt. The man from Pompton, N.J.., who always wears an overcoat in July, had turned up in a Broadway hotel drinking hot Scotches and enjoying his annual ray from the calcium. Philanthropists were petitioning the Legislature to pass a bill requiring builders to make tenement fire-escapes more commodious, so that families might die all together of the heat instead of one or two at a time. So many men were telling you about the number of baths they took each day that you wondered how they got along after the real lessee of the apartment came back to town and thanked 'em for taking such good care of it. The young man who called loudly for cold beef and beer in the restaurant, protesting that roast pullet and Burgundy was really too heavy for such weather, blushed when he met your eye, for you had heard him all winter calling, in modest tones, for the same ascetic viands. Soup, pocketbooks, shirt waists, actors and baseball excuses grew thinner. Yes, it was summertime.
A man stood at Thirty-fourth street waiting for a downtown car. A man of forty, gray-haired, pink-faced, keen, nervous, plainly dressed, with a harassed look around the eyes. He wiped his forehead and laughed loudly when a fat man with an outing look stopped and spoke with him.
'No, siree,' he shouted with defiance and scorn. 'None of your old mosquito-haunted swamps and skyscraper mountains without elevators for me. When I want to get away from hot weather I know how to do it. New York, sir, is the finest summer resort in the country. Keep in the shade and watch your diet, and don't get too far away from an electric fan. Talk about your Adirondacks and your Catskills! There's more solid comfort in the borough of Manhattan than in all the rest of the country together. No, siree! No tramping up perpendicular cliffs and being waked up at 4 in the morning by a million flies, and eating canned goods straight from the city for me. Little old New York will take a few select summer boarders; comforts and conveniences of homes--that's the ad. that I answer every time.'
'You need a vacation,' said the fat man, looking closely at the other. 'You haven't been away from town in years. Better come with me for two weeks, anyhow. The trout in the Beaverkill are jumping at anything now that looks like a fly. Harding writes me that he landed a three-pound brown last week.'
'Nonsense!' cried the other man. 'Go ahead, if you like, and boggle around in rubber boots wearing yourself out trying to catch fish. When I want one I go to a cool restaurant and order it. I laugh at you fellows whenever I think of you hustling around in the heat in the country thinking you are having a good time. For me Father Knickerbocker's little improved farm with the big shady lane running through the middle of it.'
The fat man sighed over his friend and went his way. The man who thought New York was the greatest summer resort in the country boarded a car and went buzzing down to his office. On the way he threw away his newspaper and looked up at a ragged patch of sky above the housetops.
'Three pounds!' he muttered, absently. 'And Harding isn't a liar. I believe, if I could--but it's impossible-- they've got to have another month--another month at least.'
In his office the upholder of urban midsummer joys dived, headforemost, into the swimming pool of business. Adkins, his clerk, came and added a spray of letters, memoranda and telegrams.
At 5 o'clock in the afternoon the busy man leaned back in his office chair, put his feet on the desk and mused aloud:
'I wonder what kind of bait Harding used.'
