“And oh, listen!” she said. “If the money ain’t come, don’t kill the man!”
He laughed, a great ringing laugh that made the passers-by on Wabash Avenue look amusedly after him. Then he strode off among them. At intervals, all the way to the telegraph office, he cursed the town. The noise confused him, the smoke blinded and choked him, he understood nobody’s talk of “east” and “west.” Unmercifully he jostled people who got in his way, and he pushed by them, unmindful of remonstrance. At a corner a traffic policeman roared out at him to halt. He stared at the officer, then leaped on the running board of a motor that was making a left-hand turn, and dropped off on the other side of the causeway.
“Get a grown man’s job, little fellow!” he yelled in derision.
He could find neither the signs nor the numbers. The beat of the traffic made indistinguishable the voices of those who tried to reply to his questions. To the fifth or sixth man whom he sought to understand, he roared out in a terrible voice:
“My Lord, haven’t you got any lungs?”
The man fled. The Inger tramped on, to a chant which was growing in his soul:
“Give me Inch. Give me Inch. Give me Inch....”
But by the time he had gained the telegraph office, and the man at the window, after long delay, had told him that identification would be necessary before he could collect his money, the Inger’s mood had changed. He stood before the window and broke into a roar of laughter.
“Identify me!” he said. “Me! Why, man, I’m Inger. I own the Flag-pole mine. I just got here, from Inch, Balboa County. You might as well try to identify the West coast. Look at me, you fool!”