"Sold! All four to Lady Standish!!"
As Gadsby and Nancy ran across Old Bill Simpkins, Gadsby said:—
"Bill, you know that grand old day. Look! A building is burning! A patrolman has put in an alarm! And now look! Coming down Broadway! Two big blacks, and following on, two big roans! What grand, mighty animals! Nostrils dilating; big hoofs pounding; gigantic flanks bulging; mighty lungs snorting; monstrous backs straining; thick, full tails standing straight out. Coming, sir! Coming, sir!! Just as fast as brain and brawn can! And that gong-clanging, air-splitting, whistling, shining, sizzling, smoking four tons of apparatus roars past, grinding and banging on Broadway's paving! You saw all that, Bill."
"Uh-huh," said Simpkins, "but a motor don't hurt our paving so much."
As Nancy took His Honor's arm again, Gadsby said:—
"Poor, cranky old Bill! Always running things down."
But how about Clancy and Dowd? On moving out from that big park, that happy pair, if Knighthood was in bloom today, would bow low, and kiss fair Lady Standish's hand.
XVII
Oh, hum. Now that Nancy's baby is gurgling or squalling, according to a full tummy, or tooth conditions; and Nancy is looking, as Gadsby says, "as good as a million dollars," I find that that busy young son-of-a-gun, Dan Cupid, is still snooping around Branton Hills. And now who do you think is hit? Try to think of a lot of girls in Gadsby's old Organization of Youth. No, it's not Sarah Young, nor Lucy Donaldson, nor Virginia Adams. It was brought to your historian in this way:—
Lady Gadsby and His Honor sat around his parlor lamp, His Honor noticing that Lady G. was smiling, finally saying:—