He just made fun of me, and Nature did the rest."
Jimmy scowled in the darkness. Murderous thoughts towards the
unknown brute flooded his mind.
"I wish I could meet him!" he growled.
"You aren't likely to," said Ann. "He lives in England. His name
is Crocker. Jimmy Crocker. I spoke about him just now."
Through the howling of the wind cut the sharp notes of a bugle.
Ann turned to the saloon entrance.
"Dinner!" she said brightly. "How hungry one gets on board ship!"
She stopped. "Aren't you coming down, Mr. Bayliss?"
"Not just yet," said Jimmy thickly.
CHAPTER VIII
PAINFUL SCENE IN A CAFE
The noonday sun beat down on Park Row. Hurrying mortals, released
from a thousand offices, congested the sidewalks, their thoughts
busy with the vision of lunch. Up and down the canyon of Nassau
Street the crowds moved more slowly. Candy-selling aliens jostled
newsboys, and huge dray-horses endeavoured to the best of their
ability not to grind the citizenry beneath their hooves.
Eastward, pressing on to the City Hall, surged the usual dense
army of happy lovers on their way to buy marriage-licenses. Men
popped in and out of the subway entrances like rabbits. It was a
stirring, bustling scene, typical of this nerve-centre of New
York's vast body.
Jimmy Crocker, standing in the doorway, watched the throngs
enviously. There were men in that crowd who chewed gum, there
were men who wore white satin ties with imitation diamond
stick-pins, there were men who, having smoked seven-tenths of a
cigar, were eating the remainder: but there was not one with whom
he would not at that moment willingly have exchanged identities.
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