Jones' smile broadened. "You seem capable of anything. It is a great quality. Believe me, if I thought you lacked it, you would not now be enjoying my society."
"You flatter yourself strangely, sir. If you have nothing to say, don't keep on saying it."
"On the contrary, I am here to listen to you," Jones agreeably put in. "I want your views on that case, 'The Matter of Ziegler.'"
"Hum! Ha! Got yourself in a mess. Yaas. I remember. Been served yet? Give me the facts."
One after another, Jones produced them.
During their recital, Dunwoodie twirled his thumbs. At their conclusion, he expressed himself with entire freedom. After which, he saw Jones to the door, an act which he performed only when he felt particularly uncivil. At the moment the old bulldog's lip was lifted. But not at Jones.
Broad Street was very bright that day. Its brilliance did not extend to the market. Values were departing. The slump was on. Speculators, investors, the long and the shorts, bank-messengers, broker's-clerks, jostled Jones, who went around the corner, where a cavern gaped and swallowed him.
Crashingly the express carried him uptown. He did not know but that he might have lingered. There is always room at the top, though perhaps it is unwise to buy there. At the bottom, there is room too, much more. It is very gloomy, but it is the one safe place. Jones did not think that the market had got there yet. None the less it was inviting. On the other hand, he did think he might eat something. There was a restaurant that he wot of where, the week before, he had had a horrible bite. The restaurant was nauseating, but convenient. To that dual attraction he succumbed.
At table there, he meditated on the inscrutable possibilities of life which, he decided, is full of changes, particularly in the subway; whereupon a tale in Perrault's best manner occurred to him.
A waiter, loutish and yet infinitely dreary, intervened. Jones paid and went out on the upper reaches of Broadway. The fairy-tale that he had evoked accompanied him. It was charmful as only a fairy-tale can be. But the end, while happy, was hazy. He did not at all know whether it would do.