Page:Everybody's Magazine, 1924-05.pdf/27

F. H. Hicks 25

with two burly unshaven men in rough working clothes overflowing the front seat, came rattling around a large limousine, in which reposed a fat gentleman of plutocratic appearance, placidly reading a newspaper. The small automobile bore directly down on the Colonel, and brave though he was, he jumped back against the passing surface car, which threw him roughly to the ground. So quickly did the small automobile swerve that it only ran over the Colonel's straw hat; and one of the burly unshaven men was so considerate as to lean out and look back, as his comrade stepped on the accelerator.

As nobody came to pick him up, the Colonel got up himself. He noted the number of the surface car, now so indifferently on its way; it was: one—eight—six—one. And for remembrance, he repeated aloud, with mounting ire, these printable words: "One! Eight! Six! One! 1861! 1861? By Nez! The year the War started—I've got it! By Nez! By Nez! I'll make somebody suffer for this!"

He recovered his muddy cane and sadly crushed hat, after which he took refuge behind an "L" pillar, and felt of himself to discover the extent of his injuries. He had a pain in his back, as though his rheumatism, usually confined to his left hand and right foot, had met diagonally at his backbone. His back was probably broken! Other bones, too! So vivid was his imagination, he felt he was almost falling to pieces! And he was hurt deeply in spirit! Outwardly, he was mud-bespattered; there were globules of mud on his white flowing mustache and white bushy eyebrows and long silky white hair; flakes of mud had gathered in the pits, angles, and wrinkles of his large-arched carmine nose; trickles of mud ran down the deep, pleasant lines of his face; his high-waisted, double-breasted, tight-fitting pongee coat was muddy; and the left knee of his pongee trousers had a jagged, shredded rent. His garish necktie had escaped from his coat front, muddy, flapping wildly in the breeze. But his venturesome gray eyes were not muddy, and they shone with a fierce, avenging light!

He still clutched Mrs. Handy's other nickel in his right hand, and, urged by her threats, he set out again for the Seventh Avenue subway; but a "hunch" that he would never survive the journey to Wall Street turned him back, to limp to the near-by garage for succor from Tim Toohey. Tim was the Colonel's friend, his intermediary with "bookies" and bootleggers, his constant chauffeur when finances warranted; and the wise, cynical Tim felt a protective impulse toward the Colonel, always trying to shield him from the harsh sides of New York life.

Tim, aged about forty, the broadest chauffeur in the profession, was changing a tire on his taxicab. He had a fat, ruddy face, with many little red veins showing through the skin of the cheeks, large blue eyes, and a snubby nose, the whole surmounted by a mop of sandy hair barely restrained by a linen cap.

"Timothy!"

"I'll be dinged!" gaped Tim, at sight of his muddy patron.

"Take me home in your taxicab, Timothy! My back's broken!"

Tim got the story of the late disaster from the Colonel; and when he had assured himself that the old gentleman was not seriously hurt, he chided him for recklessness. "It's like I'm always telling you, Colonel! You got to mind your P's and Q's more! Dang it! You'll get it in the neck some day!" A crafty look came into Tim's large blue eyes. "Hop in the taxi, Colonel! You're hurt bad! We'll report this to the cops! There ain't no street car got no right to run over a old gentleman your age! I betcha! Ain't nothing holds up a taxi chauffeur like them things, excepting boys on roller skates! You're hurt bad, Colonel! You oughta get some jack outa this!"

On the way to the traffic cop in slicker and rubber boots at the main cross-town street, Tim, who drove a taxicab by ear, as it were, talked over his shoulder to the Colonel, assuring him of his grave injuries, and further arousing his anger.

"Now, you wait here, Colonel, while I talk to the cop!" said Tim, as he parked his taxicab on a side street. Tim wished to tell the cop a more lurid story of the disaster than the Colonel had related to him; but, as the Colonel had peculiar convictions about certain things, Tim thought it best to propagate his version of the catastrophe out of the Colonel's presence.