“Yes, I want them,” Norah answered—“if you’re sure you can spare them all.”
“Spare ’em!” he laughed. “Why, I’ll be nex’ door to a millionaire, bringin’ off a sale like this!” He gave the string into her hand and looked at the money Mr. Linton dropped into his match tray.
“No—I say!” he said. “That’s too much, sir. Can’t you get change?”
“No, thanks,” Mr. Linton said, with a smile. “Good-bye, my lad. Come on, Norah.”
“Good-bye,” Norah said. Near the car she suddenly turned back, fishing hurriedly in her little purse. The boy looked up at her with a dazed face of joy.
“Happy Christmas!” she said. She put a shilling into his hand—and fled. The car glided off into the jumble of traffic.
The hunchback sat in his corner throughout the day, selling a box of matches now and then. The busy crowds went back and forth past him, casting curious or pitying glances at his deformity. For once, the glances did not hurt him. Norah’s smile yet lay warm at his heart.
“Said ‘Happy Chris’mas!’ she did,” he muttered. “I don’t believe she never even saw me back!”
The balloons proved rather exciting to the crowd until the next block in the traffic gave Mr. Linton an opportunity to present them gravely to a gaping urchin with the immediate result that his gape intensified alarmingly, and threatened to become a permanent fixture. Then they sped back to the city, with hasty visits here and there, to pick up parcels, and a hurried attempt at afternoon tea in the crowded lounge of the hotel. Their luggage was awaiting them, a big pile in the corridor, and presently it was loaded into a cab, and the motor was following it up the street towards the train.
At the big station they found themselves in another crowd—a hurrying, impatient crowd, armed with suit cases and dress baskets, and pursuing harassed luggage porters with incoherent instructions regarding trunks that appeared non-existent. Nobody had the slightest regard for anybody else—to get through the throng was to court death-dealing blows from the sharp corners of luggage, delivered with vehemence and without apology. Bells rang continually, with distressing effect upon would-be passengers, who ran very fast in divers directions at each ring, imagining it to be the final summons to trains which were very likely not even backed into the platform! Porters shouted instructions, very much in earnest, but wholly unintelligible. The shrieks of newsboys added to the clamour, together with the wails of many babies, protesting against travelling so early in life. Wild-eyed mothers clutched at wandering children, endeavouring frantically to keep them under the maternal wing. Beyond, in the station yard, engines whistled shrilly and shunting trains banged and rattled.