“Well,” the other proceeded angrily, “you have ruined it this time; the gears slid around like a plate of ice cream.”
“It was nothing but a pile of junk when we took it,” Tony exploded; “why don't you loosen up and get a real car?”
“I took it to Feedler's. You can send me a bill to-morrow.”
“There will be no bill. I'm sorry you were not satisfied, Sam.”
“You are the most shiftless young dog in the county,” the other told him in kindlier tones; “why don't you take hold of something, Anthony?”
Anthony swung on his heel and abruptly departed. He had taken hold, he thought hotly, times without number, but everything broke in his grasp.
The stores on Bay Street grew more infrequent, the rank of monotonous brick dwellings closed up, family groups occupied the steps that led to the open doors. The crowd grew less, dwindling to a few aimless couples, solitary pedestrians. He soon stopped, before his home. Opposite the gaunt skeleton of a building operation rose blackly against the pale stars. The aged lindens above him, lushly leaved, cast an intenser gloom, filled with the warm, musty odor of the sluiced pavement, about the white marble steps. The hall, open before him, was a cavern of coolness; beyond, from the garden shut from the street by an intricate, rusting iron fence, he heard the deliberate tones of his sister Ellie. Evidently there was a visitor, and he entered the hall noiselessly, intent upon passing without notice to his room above. But Ellie had been watching for him, and called before he had reached the foot of the stairs.