"I trust that you will pardon the intrusion," I replied politely; "but I have taken the liberty of stepping in to read a letter."
"Then you can just step out again," returned the man with a deliberation in itself a rudeness. "This ain't no reading-room."
"But," I protested, "surely you will not grudge me a modicum of solitude and quiet?"
"I guess we ain't got what you want in stock to-day. I guess you'd better inquire up at the jail; they make a sort of specialty of just them things."
I left, unwilling to expose myself to further incivility; and presently I quitted the gas-house region altogether; but not before I had been driven from a brewery by a dog, and from a canal-boat by a woman bargeman; a stevedore had challenged me to fight, and an intoxicated roustabout had given me an apple. And nowhere, nowhere, did I find a spot to read my letter.
Time passed; how much I shall never know, for I had lost all track of it. Nor could I find to-day the little bridge where, weary and disheartened, I sank down upon the broad stone coping to rest. Below, the waters tumbled foaming through a raceway toward the turbines of a power-house, with a sound that mingled pleasantly with the whir of wheels and dynamos within. In contrast with the sordid sights and sounds of Selbyville, the place was grateful and refreshing to the eye and ear, and looking from the coping I was pleased to perceive a shelf of masonry projecting below, wide enough to form a comfortable seat, and easily reached by a short drop from the bridge. Here, indeed, was an oasis, a refuge, a retreat. But unfortunately the place had been preëmpted by a negro, who appeared to be asleep.
"Hello!" I shouted, for nothing short of manslaughter could now balk me of my purpose. "Hello, my colored friend! Would you not like to earn a dollar?"
"Sure, boss!" he answered, waking instantly.
"Then go," I said, "directly to the City Hall and find out if the Mayor is in town."
The man demurred, until the actual contact of the dollar with his palm convinced him of my good faith. And presently he clambered to the bridge, while I lost little time in dropping to his place.