"We'll see how much time we have when we get to—whatever the name of that street is."
The car jolted and wailed on its way like an old drifting rocking chair. The motorman was in no hurry. The passengers seemed to have no occasion for haste. Somebody got on or got off at almost every corner, and paused for conversation while the car waited patiently. But eventually the conductor put his head in and drawled:
"Hay! here's where you get off at."
They hastened to debark and found themselves in a narrow, gaudily-lighted region where they saw a lordly transfer-distributor, a profound scholar in Chicago streets. He informed them that the minister's street lay far back along the path they had come; they should have taken a car in the opposite direction, transferred at some remote center, descended at some unheard-of street, walked three blocks one way and four another, and there they would have been.
Mallory looked at his watch, and Marjorie's hopes dropped like a wrecked aeroplane, for he grimly asked how long it would take them to reach the railroad station.
"Well, you'd ought to make it in forty minutes," the transfer agent said—and added, cynically, "if the car makes schedule."
"Good Lord, the train starts in twenty minutes!"
"Well, I tell you—take this here green car to Wexford Avenoo—there's usually a taxicab or two standin' there."
"Thank you. Hop on, Marjorie."
Marjorie hopped on, and they sat down, Mallory with eyes and thoughts on nothing but the watch he kept in his hand.