“And suppose they recognized you?”
“That’s it. That’s why I must have a pal. If they’d git a look at any one it’d have to be at you. But you don’t need to be afraid, never pinched before nor nothink. Once yer picter’s in the rogues’ they’ll run ye in if ye so much as blow yer nose. You’d just get by as an unknown man.”
“And if I didn’t get by?”
“Oh, but you would, sonny. Ye’re the kind. Just look at ye! Slim and easy-movin’ as a snake, y’are. Ye’d go through a man’s clothes while he’s got ’em on, and he wouldn’t notice ye no more’n a puff of wind. Look at yer ’and.”
I held it up and looked at it. A year ago, a month ago, I should have studied it with remorse. Now I did it stupidly, without emotions or regrets.
It was a long, slim hand, resembling the rest of my person. It was strong, however, with big, loosely articulated knuckles and muscular thumbs—again resembling the rest of my person. At the Beaux Arts, and in an occasional architect’s office, it had been spoken of as a “drawing” hand; and Lovey was now pointing out its advantages for other purposes. I laughed to myself.
“Ye’re too tall,” Lovey went on, in his appraisement. “That’s ag’in’ ye. Ye must be a good six foot. But lots o’ men are too tall. They gits over it by stoopin’ a bit; and when ye stoops it frightens people, especially women. They ain’t near as scared of a man that stands straight up as they’ll be of one that crouches and wiggles away. Kind o’ suggests evil to ’em, like, it does. And these two old ladies—”
As we reached the corner of the Park I rounded slowly on my tempter. Not that he thought of his offer as temptation, any more than I did; it was rather on his part a touch of solicitude. He was doing his best for me, in return for what he was pleased to take as my kindness to him during the past ten days.
He was a small, wizened man, pathetically neat in spite of cruel shabbiness. It was the kind of neatness that in our world so often differentiates the man who has dropped from him who has always been down. The gray suit, which was little more than a warp with no woof on it at all, was brushed and smoothed and mended. The flannel shirt, with turned-down collar, must have been chosen for its resistance to the show of dirt. The sky-blue tie might have been a more useful selection, but even that had had freshness steamed and pressed into it whenever Lovey had got the opportunity. Over what didn’t so directly meet the eye the coat was tightly buttoned up.