And for the briefest instant the hands were three; but her scream brought me back to earth just in time to save the lives of a man and a boy. Devilish ungrateful, too, for I could see the man, three blocks behind, and still shaking his fist. The way with these pedestrians!
At Fifty-ninth Street we caromed with a hansom trotting too leisurely across the plaza, and I listened for nearly a block to the remarks of a bicycle cop before he dropped behind. What dashed me not a little was Billings' indifference to the record I was making for his car—didn't seem to care a jolly hang.
The frump was still hanging on him in a way to make you sick, and cooing and going on in a nervous, half-hysterical way I never would have thought her able to chirp up to. And Billings was holding her hand!
"Hello!" I called to him, just after we clipped Yonkers.
He looked up at me, smiling and nodding.
"Feel all right now, old man?" I inquired cheerily.
Billings looked at me hard, and then, dash it, he winked! And I began to wonder, by Jove, if it was just plain drunk.