“But, odd as it may seem, I rather want my nineteen dollars,” maintained Teddie, with an intent gaze down the side-street.
“Your nineteen dollars and seventy-five cents,” corrected the man in tweeds, not forgetful of a recent extortion.
“Yuh’re likely to clap eyes on that Dago again, ain’t yuh!” The open scorn of the officer was monumental. “He’ll be spendin’ what’s left of his days tryin’ to ferret yuh out, I s’pose, wastin’ his young life away battlin’ to get that easy coin back to yuh! What he’s breakin’ now isn’t a twenty-dollar bill, my gerrl, but a travelin’ record down to the Third Ward. And I guess the sooner yuh come along wit’ me, and the quieter yuh come, the better.”
“But you really can’t do this sort of thing, you know, Officer,” the man in tweeds interposed. “This girl——”
“Yuh shut your trap,” announced the upholder of law and order, with an indifferent side-glance at the interloper, “or I’ll gather yuh in wit’ the dame here.”
“That’s an eventuality which I’d rather welcome,” averred the other, with his blood up.
“All right, then, come along, the both o’ yuh,” was the prompt and easy response. “And come quick or I’ll make it a double pinch for blockin’ traffic.”
But Raoul Uhlan, clinging to what was left of his dignity, insisted on calling a taxi-cab (which Teddie paid for when they arrived at the Forty-Seventh Street station-house) and in transit managed to say many soothing and valorous things, so that by the time Teddie stood before a somewhat grim-looking desk in the neighboring receiving depot for miscreants, her courage had come back to her and she didn’t even resort to home addresses and influences for a short-cut out of her difficulty. She soon had the satisfaction, indeed, of seeing her moody patrolman picturesquely berated by his higher official behind the desk, who apologized for retaining the dollar bill and the tray of violets and announced that as there was no case and no charge against her—which any one but a pin-headed flatty with a double-barreled grouch could have seen!—she was quite free to enjoy the morning air once more.
So Teddie sallied forth with a great load off her mind and with Raoul Uhlan at her side. And the latter, instead of breakfasting with the plutocrat from Pittsburgh who wished to perpetuate his obesity in oils, sent a polite fib of explanation over the wires which were more or less inured to such things, and carried Teddie off to luncheon at the Brevoort, where he learned that she was one of the Haydens of Tuxedo and had a studio on the fringe of Greenwich Village and wanted to paint. And before she quite knew how it had all been arranged it was agreed that Uhlan was to come three times a week and give her lessons in Art, for the sake of Art.