XVI. — THE SCARS
My friend the tune-maker has often unintentionally amused his acquaintances by the gravity with which he attributes significance to the most trivial occurrences.
He turns the most thoughtless speeches, uttered in jest, into prophecies.
“Very well,” he used to say to us at a café table, “you may laugh. But it's astonishing how things turn out sometimes.”
“As for instance?” some one would inquire.
“Never mind. But I could give an instance if I wished to do so.”
One evening, over a third bottle, he grew unusually communicative.
“Just to illustrate how things happen,” he began, speaking so as to be audible above the din of the café to the rest of us around the table, “I'll tell you about a man I know. One February morning, about eight years ago, he was hurrying to catch a train. There was ice on the sidewalks and people had to walk cautiously or ride. As he was turning a corner he saw by a clock that he had only five minutes in which to reach the station, three blocks away. An instant later he saw a shapely figure in soft furs suddenly describe a forward movement and drop in a heap to the sidewalk, ten feet in front of him. A melodious light soprano scream arose from the heap. A divinely turned ankle in a quite human black stocking was momentarily visible. He was by the side of the mass of furs and skirts in three steps.