This lasted for half a dozen stations and then the patient
began to play like a mountainous kitten. He took a strap on either side
of the car and turned somersaults; he did traveling ring work with them;
he gave a standing broad jump that would have been creditable on an
athletic field; he had his audience screaming with laughter at an
imitation of water polo over the back of a seat. Then, just as the fun
was at an almost impossible point, and the conductor, highly entertained
but worried, was considering how to get this chap arrested, Billy walked
up to him with charming friendliness and shook hands.
"One th' besh track meets I've ever had pleasure attendin', sir," he
said genially, and sat down and relapsed into grave dignity.
So he remained for five minutes, to the trembling joy of his exhausted
guardian, but it was too good to be true. Suddenly, at Fifty-third
Street, he spied a young woman at the other end of the car. There were
not more than nine passengers, so that each person might have had a
matter of half a dozen seats a piece, but Strong suddenly felt a demand
on his politeness, and reason was nothing to him. He rose and marched
the forty feet or so between himself and the woman, and, standing in
front of her, lifted, with some difficulty, his hat.
"Won't you take my seat, madam?" he inquired, with a smile of perfect
courtesy.
The young person was a young person of common-sense and she caught the
situation.
Pages:
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34