The vigilant guardian of the peace waved him majestically aside, as he answered:
"Don't bother me with such very trifling affairs when I'm timing an automobile."
Bob said things had come to a pretty pass when a man's time-piece might be stolen with impunity because of the necessity for securing the time-pace of a machine.
Our walk took us along the Bowery, and as I was passing, a man seemed to be busily engaged in shoving some bank-bills, together with a straw-colored ticket into his pocket. I was surprised to hear him give way to sentiment and exclaim:
"Alone at last!"
Just then Bob, with a grin, called my attention to the three golden balls over the door of the shop from which he had evidently just emerged, and I tumbled to the game.
On the corner of Grand Street I was halted for a minute by an Irishman whom I knew as a steady fellow, a machinist by trade, and with a buxom better-half who ruled his home like a queen.