Bean surveyed the landscape approvingly. Anyway, it was a fine enough performance to keep them waiting there. They would all be enraged. Perhaps the old one would have his stroke before the arrival of the spectator to whom it would give the most pleasure. They might be taking him out to the ambulance, and all the other directors would stand there and say, "This is your work. Officer, do your duty!" Well, it would be worth it. He'd tell them so, too!
Looking ahead, he became aware that an electric car had suffered an accident. The passengers streamed out and gathered around the motorman who was peering under the car. As Paul slowed down and turned aside to pass, the motorman declared, "She's burned out. Have to wait for the next car to push us."
There were annoyed stirrings in the group. A few passengers started for a suburban railway station that could be seen a half-mile distant. Bean looked down upon these delayed people with amused sympathy.
Then, astoundingly, his eye fell upon one of the passengers a little aloof from the group about the motorman. He, too, after a last look at the car, seemed to be resolving on that long tramp to the station. He was a sightly young man, tall, heavily built, and dressed in garments that would on any human form have won Bean's instant respect. But on the form of the Greatest Pitcher the World Has Ever Seen—!!
His mind was at once vacant of all the past, of all the future. There was no more a Breede, male or female, no more directors or shares or jails. There was only a big golden Present, subduing, enthralling, limitless!
"Stop car!" hissed Bean. The car halted three feet from the young man on foot.
"Jump in!" gasped Bean.
"Thanks," said the young man; "I'm going the other way."
"Me, too! I was turning around just here."
The young man hesitated, surveying his interlocutor.