"Didn't there use to be a grocery over there?" asked Mr. Clatfield.
"Yes, where the tall building now stands," replied the other. "Do you remember the fat groceryman who used to sell us apples?"
"Oh, yes," the banker rejoined, "and they were first rate apples, too.
Strange, but I can't eat apples now; they don't agree with me."
"No," said Mr. Wattles, "I suppose not."
The lighted windows of a great department store made an arcade of radiance in the murky night, creating an illusion of protection so strong that one might well believe oneself indoors. The rain was changing into snow, which melted under foot but hung about the hair and beards and shoulders of the passers-by. Along the curb a row of barrows displayed cheap toys and Christmas greens for sale.
"Do you remember how we used to linger at the shops, and pick out presents and imagine we had lots of money?" Mr. Wattles asked.
"That was your game," answered Mr. Clatfield. "I never could imagine anything. I could see only the things you pointed out."
It seemed to the banker that in the place of his middle-aged cashier there walked beside him an odd, alert little boy, with bristling hair and beady eyes, and he caught himself looking about him in an old, vain hope of being able first to catch sight of something interesting. As they turned into a less frequented street he asked:
"What became of the old woman who made butterscotch?"
"She made the last in '81," replied the other. "The penny-in-the-slot machines broke up her business."
"Really?" the banker commented. "It seems a pity."
The air was growing colder and the dancing motes of snow made halos about every street-lamp.
"Don't they look like swarms of Mayflies?" remarked Mr. Wattles. "One might almost believe it was summer."
"Yes, so one might," assented Mr. Clatfield, "now that you speak of it."
A few steps up a slippery alley they stopped before a shabby little house, the shabbiest of a row of little houses, each one of which displayed the legend "Washing Done."
"Come in," said the cashier, as he pushed open the door.
Within, a tall spare woman stood with bare red arms before a washtub on a backless wooden chair. Upon the floor, amid the heaps of linen waiting for the tub, a litter of small children rolled and tumbled like so many puppies. Festoons of drying shirts and handkerchiefs hung in an atmosphere of steam and suds.
At sight of Mr. Wattles the woman broke into a flood of explanation and excuse. The water had been frozen all the week, the sun had refused to shine, the baby had been sick. There were a dozen reasons why he could not have his collars, as the speaker called on Heaven to bear witness.
"You'd have 'em on your neck this minute," she declared, "if work could put them there, for it's meself that needs the money for me rint."
"Ahem!" said Mr. Wattles, "I fancied that your claim against the railway had left you pretty comfortably off."
"Claim, is it?" cried the laundress. "Claim against the railway? Faith, after keeping me waiting for two years they threw me out of court. They said that Mike contributed his negligence and that it served him right."
"That seems a little hard," commented Mr. Clatfield guardedly, for he was a director in the railway.
"Small blame to you, but you're a gentleman!" exclaimed the washerwoman.
"At least your husband left you quite a little family," the banker ventured to suggest.
"Contributory negligence again!" said Mr. Wattles under his breath.
"It's all a body has to do to keep them fed," lamented Mary Ann, "as maybe you know well yourself, sir, if you've childer of your own."
"I have none," said the other.
"God pity you!" returned big Mary Ann.
"Ah, that reminds me," put in Mr. Wattles, and coming nearer to the laundress, he explained: "My friend here is the banker, Mr. Clatfield."
"It's proud I am this day," she answered, with a courtesy.
"He has no children," went on Mr. Wattles, "but he is very anxious to adopt one, and knowing that you have more than you really need----"
"What are you saying?" began Mr. Clatfield, but his voice was drowned in an outbreak from the woman.
"Is it daft ye are?" she cried. Mr. Wattles continued, unheeding:
"He is willing to give you ten thousand dollars for such a one as this"--indicating with his cane an animated lump upon the floor.
"Me Teddy, is it?" cried the mother, catching up the lump and depositing it for safety in an empty tub.
"Or what would you say to twenty thousand for this one here?" persisted Mr. Wattles, again making use of his cane.
"Sure that's me Dan," the woman almost shrieked, and another lump went into the tub.
"Well, we are not disposed to quarrel over trifles," went on Mr. Wattles cheerfully. "You select the child and name the price--twenty, thirty, forty thousand--all in cash."
"Gwan out of this, and take your dirty money wid yez!" cried Mrs.
Murphy, ominously rolling a wet sock into a ball.
"Of course, if you feel that way, we shall not urge the matter," said Mr. Wattles coldly. "Good-evening, Mrs. Murphy."
"Bad luck to yez for a pair of thavin' vipers!" she called after their retreating figures. "If I had me strength ye'd not get far."
"I am astonished at you, Wattles," said Mr. Clatfield when they were safe beyond the alley. "I would not have given a dollar for the lot."
"No," said Mr. Wattles, "I suppose not."
The two men walked along in silence for a time, while Mr. Clatfield occupied himself with efforts to divine the point of Mr. Wattles's ill-timed jest. More than once he would have cut short the expedition could he have thought of an excuse, and though the course was somewhat devious, they were headed in a general way toward his own front door, with its broad marble steps and iron lions. The people in the street were few and uninteresting, the houses dull and monotonous, each with its drawn yellow shades and dimly lighted transom, and the banker welcomed the sight of what appeared to be a gathering of some sort up ahead.
They had come out upon a dreary square, surrounded by tall warehouses and wholesale stores, now tightly closed and barred with iron shutters.
A line of vans and drays without their horses occupied an open space in violation of the law. From one of these a man addressed a little group of inattentive loiterers.
The audience changed constantly as those whose passing curiosity was satisfied moved off to be replaced by others, but the man did not appear to care how few or many stayed to listen. He was a young man, and his face, in the full glare of the electric light, was radiant with enthusiasm for his theme, whatever it might be. The cashier pushed his way into the crowd and Mr. Clatfield followed.
"I should think he would prefer to speak indoors a night like this,"
remarked the banker.
The speaker's subject was an old one, old as the tree of Eden, but never had the two newcomers heard a more effective speech. Perhaps the setting of the bleak, deserted market-place created an illusion.