Part 20 (1/2)

”Didn't there use to be a grocery over there?” asked Mr. Clatfield.

”Yes, where the tall building now stands,” replied the other. ”Do you remember the fat groceryman who used to sell us apples?”

”Oh, yes,” the banker rejoined, ”and they were first rate apples, too.

Strange, but I can't eat apples now; they don't agree with me.”

”No,” said Mr. Wattles, ”I suppose not.”

The lighted windows of a great department store made an arcade of radiance in the murky night, creating an illusion of protection so strong that one might well believe oneself indoors. The rain was changing into snow, which melted under foot but hung about the hair and beards and shoulders of the pa.s.sers-by. Along the curb a row of barrows displayed cheap toys and Christmas greens for sale.

”Do you remember how we used to linger at the shops, and pick out presents and imagine we had lots of money?” Mr. Wattles asked.

”That was your game,” answered Mr. Clatfield. ”I never could imagine anything. I could see only the things you pointed out.”

It seemed to the banker that in the place of his middle-aged cas.h.i.+er there walked beside him an odd, alert little boy, with bristling hair and beady eyes, and he caught himself looking about him in an old, vain hope of being able first to catch sight of something interesting. As they turned into a less frequented street he asked:

”What became of the old woman who made b.u.t.terscotch?”

”She made the last in '81,” replied the other. ”The penny-in-the-slot machines broke up her business.”

”Really?” the banker commented. ”It seems a pity.”

The air was growing colder and the dancing motes of snow made halos about every street-lamp.

”Don't they look like swarms of Mayflies?” remarked Mr. Wattles. ”One might almost believe it was summer.”

”Yes, so one might,” a.s.sented Mr. Clatfield, ”now that you speak of it.”

A few steps up a slippery alley they stopped before a shabby little house, the shabbiest of a row of little houses, each one of which displayed the legend ”Was.h.i.+ng Done.”

”Come in,” said the cas.h.i.+er, as he pushed open the door.

Within, a tall spare woman stood with bare red arms before a washtub on a backless wooden chair. Upon the floor, amid the heaps of linen waiting for the tub, a litter of small children rolled and tumbled like so many puppies. Festoons of drying s.h.i.+rts and handkerchiefs hung in an atmosphere of steam and suds.

At sight of Mr. Wattles the woman broke into a flood of explanation and excuse. The water had been frozen all the week, the sun had refused to s.h.i.+ne, the baby had been sick. There were a dozen reasons why he could not have his collars, as the speaker called on Heaven to bear witness.

”You'd have 'em on your neck this minute,” she declared, ”if work could put them there, for it's meself that needs the money for me rint.”

”Ahem!” said Mr. Wattles, ”I fancied that your claim against the railway had left you pretty comfortably off.”

”Claim, is it?” cried the laundress. ”Claim against the railway? Faith, after keeping me waiting for two years they threw me out of court. They said that Mike contributed his negligence and that it served him right.”

”That seems a little hard,” commented Mr. Clatfield guardedly, for he was a director in the railway.

”Small blame to you, but you're a gentleman!” exclaimed the washerwoman.

”At least your husband left you quite a little family,” the banker ventured to suggest.

”Contributory negligence again!” said Mr. Wattles under his breath.

”It's all a body has to do to keep them fed,” lamented Mary Ann, ”as maybe you know well yourself, sir, if you've childer of your own.”