"I like to take the grip; it gives a fellow a little fresh air, if there is any at all."
A train of cable-cars came nosing along like vicious boars, with snouts close to the ground. Mary helped Rose upon the open forward car, which had seats facing outward. A young man lifted his hat and made room for them.
"Hello, John!" said Mary, "aren't you a little early tonight? Rose, my friend Mr. Hardy. Mr. Hardy, Miss Dutcher."
The young fellow raised his hat again and bowed. He was a pleasant-faced young man in round straw hat and short coat. Mary paid no further attention to him.
"I've got you a room right next to mine," she said to Rose, who was holding to the seat with one hand and clinging to her hat with the other. The car stopped and started with vicious suddenness.
"You'd better hang on; the gripman is mad tonight," Mary explained. "We're most to our street, anyway."
To Rose it was all a wild ride. The noise, the leaping motion of the cars and the perilous passage of drays made it as pleasant to her as a ride behind a running team on a corduroy road.
They came at last to quieter spaces, and alighted finally at a cross street.
"I'm pretty far up," said Mary, "but I want it decently quiet where I live. I have noise enough at the office."
Rose thought it indecently noisy. Peddlers were crying out strange sing-song cries; children romped, screaming in high-pitched furious voices; laundry wagons and vegetable wagons clattered about. There was a curious pungent odor in the air.