But Brown only shook his head with an infatuated smile.
"Is it that girl?" said Smith, incensed. "Are you a--a Broadway Don Juan, or are you a respectable lawyer with a glimmering sense of common decency and an intention to keep a social engagement at the Carringtons' to-day?"
And Smith drew out his timepiece and flourished it furiously under Brown's handsome and sun-tanned nose.
But Brown only slid along the seat away from him, saying:
"Don't bother me, Jim; this is too momentous a crisis in my life to have a well-intentioned but intellectually dwarfed friend butting into me and running about under foot."
"Intellectually d-d--do you mean me?" asked Smith, unable to believe his ears. "Do you?"
"Yes, I do! Because a miracle suddenly happens to me on Forty-second Street, and you, with your mind of a stockbroker, unable to appreciate it, come clattering and clamoring after me about a house party--a common-place, every-day, social appointment, when I have a full-blown miracle on my hands!"
"What miracle?" faltered Smith, stupefied.
"What miracle? Haven't I been telling you that I've been having that queer sense that all this has happened before? Didn't I suddenly begin-- as though compelled by some unseen power--to foretell things? Didn't I prophesy the coming of this cross-town car? Didn't I even name its color before it came into sight? Didn't I warn you that I'd probably get into it? Didn't I reveal to you that a big straw hat and a pretty summer gown----"
"Confound it!" almost shouted Smith, "There are about five thousand cherry-colored cross-town cars in this town. There are about five million white hats and dresses in this borough. There are five billion girls wearing 'em----!" "Yes; but the wicker basket" breathed Brown. "How do you account for that?... And, anyway, you annoy me, Smith. Why don't you get out of the car and go somewhere?"