“I may be a cripple, but I refuse to be treated as such,” he told Jim, in response to the latter’s protest. “Next thing you know, they’ll be offering to carry me on a stretcher.”
Nevertheless, Jim noted that Joe sighted the taxicab with eagerness, and leaned back in its shabby interior with a sigh of relief.
“Hate to show myself to Mabel in this shape,” he said ruefully. “Looks as though I’d had the worst end of the fight.”
“Rather step up lively to the tune of ‘Hail the Conquering Hero Comes,’ I suppose?” said Jim, with an understanding grin. “I think I get your train of thought all right, old man. But I wouldn’t worry, if I were you. Nothing you could do would ever make Mabel think you anything but a hero.”
“Let’s hope you have the right dope,” said Joe.
He looked abstractedly from the dingy windows of the cab at the spectacle of the crowded streets. At that moment he really saw nothing but his young wife as she had looked the last time they had been forced to say good-bye. It had seemed to him then that he could never bear to part from her again. He was so eager to get to her that he had a ludicrous desire to get out and push the taxicab along.
“Thought it was to-night that Mabel was coming,” remarked Jim, interrupting his reverie. “You could have met her at the train then.”
“Reggie found that he would have to come to the city on business, and since it was necessary for him to come on an earlier train, Mabel decided to change her own plans so that she could come along with him,” explained Joe.
“Oh, so we’re about to see our old friend, Reggie, again!” exclaimed Jim, with real enthusiasm. “Glad to see the old boy, though I can’t help wishing he’d mislay that monocle of his. ‘The bally thing makes me nervous, don’t you know?’” he finished, in perfect imitation of the absent Reggie.
Reginald Varley not only had the fact that he was Mabel’s brother to recommend him to Joe and Jim, but despite his affectation of a supposed English accent and the absurdity of a monocle, Reggie was a fine and likable fellow.