I didn't breathe real deep, though, until we'd fetched sight of a little place where the mountain left off and the dago police were supposed to begin. Just before we got to the first house we sees something up on a rock at one side of the road. Day was comin', red and sudden, and we saw who it was on the rock—the lady brigandess. Sure thing!
Now don't tax me with how she got there. I'd quit trying to keep cases on her. But there she was waiting for us. As we got in line she glued her eyes on the Boss and tossed him a lip-thriller with a real Juliet-Roxane movement. And the Boss blew one back. Well, that suited me, all right, so far as it went. But as we made for a turn in the road the Boss reached out for the lines and pulled in our pair of skates. Then he turns and looks back. So did I. She was still there, for a fact, and it kind of looked as if she was holding her arms out toward him.
"By God, Shorty," says the Boss, breathing quick and talking through his teeth, "I'm going back."
"Sure," says I, "to New York," and I had a half-Nelson on him before he knew it was coming. We went four miles that way, too, the horses finding the road, before I dared let him up. I looked for trouble then. But it had been all over in a breath, just an open-and-shut piece of battiness, same as fellers have when they jump a bridge. He was meek enough the rest of the way, but sore. I couldn't pry a word out of him anyway. Not until we got settled down in the smoking-room of a Mediterranean steamer headed for Sandy Hook did he shake his trance.
"Shorty," says he, givin' me the friendly palm, "I owe you a lot more than apologies."
"Well, I ain't no collection agency," says I. "Sponge it off."
"I was looking for the Elixir," says he, "and—and I found it."
"I can get all the 'Lixir I want," says I, "between the East River and the North, and I don't need no cork-puller, either."
That's me. I've been back a week now, and even the screech of the L trains sounds good. Everything looks good, and smells good, and feels good. You don't have to pinch yourself to find out whether or not you're alive. You know all the time that you're in New York, where there's somethin' doin' twenty hours in the day.
It'ly! Oh, yes, I want to go there again—when I get to be a mummy.