“In that case,” said Mauney, with an amused expression, “I suppose I had better fall in line.”
Next he proceeded to a tobacconist’s to buy a newspaper and cigarettes. While he was talking to the clerk he realized that he was being gently, but effectively, elbowed sidewise by a stranger, who, in his impatience to capture a newspaper from a pile nearby, reached directly in front of Mauney’s face. In drawing out his copy of the journal he not only upset the pile, but knocked the silver out of Mauney’s hand. Turning in expectation of adjusting what was evidently an unavoidable situation, Mauney was surprised to behold the young man walking quickly away through the door and entering a sumptuous motor-car at the curb. He watched him drive away, then turned to the clerk.
“Did you notice who that fellow was?” he asked.
“You bet I did,” the other snarled, as he brought order once more to the untidy counter, “and I’ve got his number, too. That bird is getting just a wee bit too fresh. Just because his old man happened to make a few dishonest millions out West, he’s got the idea that the rest of us bums just live to wait on him. But I’ll tell you one thing,” he added with a curse, “the next time he tries any rough-house he’s going to get a heavy lid.”
“I wouldn’t blame you much,” said Mauney, picking up his change. “Who is he?”
“Don’t you know him? Why that’s Mister Edward Courtney. Lives in that house down Queen East that looks like a bloody prison. Got about twenty motor-cars, but don’t know when he’s well off. Just let him try that trick again and, so help me Kate, I don’t care if it takes me to the police court, he’s goin’ to get a rocker right on that damned dimple!”
That evening, when talking to Freda, Mauney related the incident and was surprised when she defended Courtney.
“I haven’t any use for the family taken collectively,” she admitted, “but you’d have to know Ted to understand that incident. He’s really not such a bad lot—a most terrible enthusiast over trifles and frightfully absent-minded at times. Probably when he bunted into you he was in a hurry to get to the ball game and didn’t realize what he was doing. I’ve known Ted just about all my life, and I’d put it down to pure thoughtlessness and animal pep. Of course, he’s spoiled and needs a lesson, I know that!”
“You’ll get accustomed to Lockwood ways, perhaps,” she said a little later, as she took Mauney for a spin up the river road, out of town. “And perhaps you won’t. I hate to discourage you, but I’m a little afraid you never will tune up to Lockwood. I never have, and we’re something alike, are we not?”
As they sped along the winding tarvia road, under arching elms, past clusters of willows in the hollows, and groves of pine, with numerous summer residences facing the river, Freda kept nodding to acquaintances in other cars.