"No—no—it can't be—you are not—not—"
"Not C? Ain't I, though!" laughed the proprietor of the ring, pin, bear's-grease, et cetera.
"But," said poor Nattie, clinging desperately to hope and the umbrella,
"C said this morning he was going to B a—and—"
"That was a trick to take you by surprise," he interrupted, with great enjoyment of his own words. "I knew I was coming here, all the time, but I wanted to give you a nice little surprise. Think I have, eh?" and he laughed again, and winked with almost vulgar assurance.
Nattie let go of hope and the umbrella, and collapsed with her romance into a chair; and she thought of Quimby's warning about the "soiled invisible," and barely suppressed a groan. Involuntarily she stole a glance at this too-visible person, and shuddered. Could she reconcile "C," her visionary, interesting, witty and gentlemanly "C" of the wire, with this musk-scented being of greasy red hair, cheap jewelry and vulgar manners? Impossible!
"It is the nightmare! it cannot be!" she thought, with the despairing refuge in dreams we often take when suddenly overwhelmed with terrible realities.
As she made no reply to his last observation, her visitor, glancing at her as if slightly puzzled by her behavior, went on—
"I did not think you would be so bashful, after all our talks. I am not,"—a fact hardly necessary to mention. "We ought to be pretty good friends by this time. Say, do I look as you expected I would? and as if to give her a better view, he pushed his hat back on his head, a kindness wholly unappreciated, as Nattie had seen more than sufficient of him already.
"Not—not exactly!" she stammered, in a sort of dazed way.
"I believe you thought I was one of those slim fellows whose bones rattle when they walk, didn't you? I am no such a fellow, you see. But you ain't a bit as I imagined. May I be a plug [1] forever if you are!"