We are waiting. The policeman is busy hailing a taxi. I just stand there self-conscious. Nobody asks any questions. They are content to look. Their steadfast watching is so impressing. I feel small—like a cheat. Their worship does not belong to me. God, if I could only do something for all of them!
But there are too many—too many. Good impulses so often die before this "too many."
"Good-bye, Charlie! God bless you!" I am on my way.
The taxi is going up Kennington Road along Kennington Park. Kennington Park. How depressing Kennington Park is! How depressing to me are all parks! The loneliness of them. One never goes to a park unless one is lonesome. And lonesomeness is sad. The symbol of sadness, that's a park.
But I am fascinated now with it. I am lonesome and want to be. I want to commune with myself and the years that are gone. The years that were passed in the shadow of this same Kennington Park. I want to sit on its benches again in spite of their treacherous bleakness, in spite of the drabness.
But I am in a taxi. And taxis move fast. The park is out of sight. Its alluring spell is dismissed with its passing. I did not sit on the bench. We are driving toward Kennington Gate.
Kennington Gate. That has its memories. Sad, sweet, rapidly recurring memories.
'Twas here, my first appointment with Hetty (Sonny's sister). How I was dolled up in my little, tight-fitting frock coat, hat, and cane! I was quite the dude as I watched every street car until four o'clock waiting for Hetty to step off, smiling as she saw me waiting.
I get out and stand there for a few moments at Kennington Gate. My taxi driver thinks I am mad. But I am forgetting taxi drivers. I am seeing a lad of nineteen, dressed to the pink, with fluttering heart, waiting, waiting for the moment of the day when he and happiness walked along the road. The road is so alluring now. It beckons for another walk, and as I hear a street car approaching I turn eagerly, for the moment almost expecting to see the same trim Hetty step off, smiling.