A messenger boy, slouching by, heard me and drew up, hopeful of some fun. Willitts saw him and began to look like murder would be added to his other offenses. I gave a glance up the street—still only drays and wagons, not a taxi in sight. Fatima with Sister Anne reporting from the tower, had nothing over me for watchful waiting.
"It's Rosie," I whined, "it's your own little Rosie. If I don't look the same it's the suffering you've caused me and Gawd knows it."
I laid my hand on his arm. With a movement of fury he shook it off and began to back away from me. Another boy had come up against the messenger and lodged there like a leaf in a stream, caught in an eddy. I heard him say, "What's on?" and the other answered:
"Don't know but I guess it's the movies."
And they both looked round for the camera man.
I don't think Willitts heard them. His back was that way and his face to me, hard as iron and savage as a hungry wolf's. He tried to speak low and soothing:
"Now 'old your tongue, don't make such a fuss. I'll give you something and you go off quiet and respectable." His hand felt in his pocket and I raised a loud, tearful howl:
"Money! Is it money you're offering? What's money to me whose heart you've broken?"
"I don't see no camera man," came the messenger boy's voice.
"Aw, he's in one of them wagons," said the other. "I've seen 'em in wagons."