第76章 CHAPTER XXVI(3)

"Wreckers' lights. Behold! Yonder is a highly nutritious whisky blinking its bloomin' farewell. Do you chew gum? Even if you don't, in a few minutes I'll give you a cud for thought. Chewing gum was invented by a man with a talkative wife. He missed the physiological point, however, that a body can chew and talk at the same time. Come on!"

They went on uptown, Hawksley highly amused, exhilarated, but frequently puzzled. The pungent irony of her observations conveyed to him that under this gayety was a current of extreme bitterness.

"I say, are all American girls like you?"

"Heavens, no! Why?"

"Because I never met one like you before. Rather stilted - on their good behaviour, I fancy."

"And I interest you because I'm not on my good behaviour?" Kitty whipped back.

"Because you are as God made you - without camouflage."

"The poor innocent young man! I'm nothing but camouflage to-night.

Why are you risking your life in the street? Why am I sharing that risk? Because we both feel bound and are blindly trying to break through. What do you know about me? Nothing. What do I know about you? Nothing. But what do we care? Come on, come on!"

Tumpitum - tump! tumpitum - tump! drummed the Elevated. Kitty laughed. The tocsin! Always something happened when she heard it.

"Pearls!" she cried, dragging him toward a jeweller's window.

"No!" he said, holding back. "I hate - jewels! How I hate them!"

He broke away from her and hurried on.

She had to run after him. Had she hesitated they might have become separated. Hated jewels? No, no! There should be no questions, verbal or mental, this night. She presently forced him to slow down.

"Not so fast! We must never become separated," she warned. "Our safety - such as it is - lies in being together."

"I'm an ass. Perhaps my head is ratty without my realizing it. I fancy I'm like a dog that's been kicked; I'm trying to run away from the pain. What's this tomb?"

"The Metropolitan Opera House."

As they were passing a thin, wailing sound came to the ears of both.

Seated with his back to the wall was a blind fiddler with a tin cup strapped to a knee. He was out of bounds; he had no right on Broadway; but he possessed a singular advantage over the law. He could not be forced to move on without his guide - if he were honestly blind. Hundreds of people were passing; but the fiddler's "Last Rose of Summer" wasn't worth a cent. His cup was empty.

"The poor thing!" said Kitty.

"Wait!" Hawksley approached the fiddler, exchanged a few words with him, and the blind man surrendered his fiddle.

"Give me your hat!" cried Kitty, delighted.

Carefully Hawksley pried loose his derby and handed it to Kitty.

No stab of pain; something to find that out. He turned the instrument, tucked it under his chin and began "Traumerei." Kitty, smiling, extended the hat. Just the sort of interlude to make the adventure memorable. She knew this thoroughfare. Shortly there would be a crowd, and the fiddler's cup would overflow - that is, if the police did not interfere too soon.

As for the owner of the wretched fiddle, he raised his head, his mouth opened. Up there, somewhere, a door to heaven had opened.

True to her expectations a crowd slowly gathered. The beauty of the girl and the dark, handsome face of the musician, his picturesque bare head, were sufficient for these cynical passers-by. They understood. Operatic celebrities, having a little fun on their own.

So quarters and dimes and nickels began to patter into Cutty's ancient derby hat. Broadway will always contribute generously toward a novelty of this order. Famous names were tossed about in undertones.

Entered then the enemy of the proletariat. Kitty, being a New Yorker born, had had her weather eye roving. The brass-buttoned minion of the law was always around when a bit of innocent fun was going on. As the policeman reached the inner rim of the audience the last notes of Handel's "Largo" were fading on the ear.

"What's this?" demanded the policeman.

"It's all over, sir," answered Kitty, smiling.

"Can't have this on Broadway, miss. Obstruction." He could not speak gruffly in the face of such beauty - especially with a Broadway crowd at his back.

"It's all over. Just let me put this money in the blind man's cup."

Kitty poured her coins into the receptacle. At the same time Hawksley laid the fiddle in the blind man's lap. Then he turned to Kitty and boomed a long Russian phrase at her. Her quick wit caught the intent. "You see, he doesn't understand that this cannot be done in New York. I couldn't explain."

"All right, miss; but don't do it again." The policeman grinned.

"And please don't be harsh with the blind man. Just tell him he mustn't play on Broadway again. Thank you!'

She linked her arm in Hawksley's, and they went on; and the crowd dissolved; only the policeman and the blind man remained, the one contemplating his duty and the other his vision of heaven.

"What a lark!" exclaimed Hawksley.

"Were you asking me for your hat?"

"I was telling the bobby to go to the devil!"

They laughed like children.

"March hares!" he said.

"No. April fools! Good heavens, the time! Twenty minutes to seven. Our dinner!"

"We'll take a taxi.... Dash it!"

"What's wrong?"

"Not a bally copper in my pockets!"

"And I left my handbag on the sideboard! We'll have to walk. If we hurry we can just about make it."

Meantime, there lay in wait for them - this pair of April fools - a taxicab. It stood snugly against the curb opposite the entrance to Cutty's apartment. The door was slightly ajar.

The driver watched the south corner; the three men inside never took their gaze off the north corner.

"But, I say, hasn't this been a jolly lark?"

"If we had known we could have borrowed a dollar from the blind man; he'd never have missed it."