I felt him peering suspiciously at me. “Guess not. But don’t keep us waiting, see? We’ll be ready to go in twenty minutes.”
I did not like Mr Sprovis. In the automatic lunchroom where the dishes were delivered by a clever clockwork device as coins were deposited in the right slots, I gorged on fish and potatoes, but my pleasure at getting away for once from the unvarying bread and heart was spoiled by the thought of him. And I was at best no more than half through with the night’s adventure. What freight Sprovis and his companions were now loading in the van I had no idea. Except that it was nothing innocent.
When I turned the corner into Twenty-Sixth Street again, the shadowy mass of the horse and van was gone from its place by the curb. Alarmed, I broke into a run and discovered it turning in the middle of the block. I jumped and caught hold of the dash, pulling myself aboard. “What’s the idea?”
A fist caught me in the shoulder, almost knocking me back into the street. Zigzags of shock ran down my arm, terminating in numbing pain. Desperately I clung to the dash.
“Hold it,” someone rumbled; “it’s the punk who came with. Let him in.”
Another voice, evidently belonging to the man who’d hit me, admonished, “Want to watch yourself, chum. Not go jumping like that without warning. I might of stuck a shiv in your ribs instead of my hand.”
I could only repeat, “What’s the idea of trying to run off with the van? I’m responsible for it.”
“He’s responsible, see,” mocked another voice from the body of the van. “Aint polite not to wait on him.”
I was wedged between the driver and my assailant; my shoulder ached and I was beginning to be really frightened now my first anger had passed. These were “action” members of the Grand Army; men who regularly committed battery, mayhem, arson, robbery and murder. I had been both foolhardy and lucky; realizing this it seemed diplomatic not to try for possession of the reins.
I could hear the breathing and mumbling of others in back, but it didnt need this to tell me the van was over-loaded. We turned north on Sixth Avenue; the street lights showed Sprovis driving. “Gidap, gidap,” he urged, “get going!”