y. There was
no need of his hurrying to do this, although a car was coming towards
him, so he stepped carefully but surely. But as he reached the middle of
the track a man came towards him from the opposite pavement; they met
and hesitated, and then both jumped to the same side, and the man's
shoulder struck the tray and threw the white figures flying to the
track, where the horses tramped over them on their way. Guido fell
backwards, frightened and shaken, and the car stopped, and the driver
and the conductor leaned out anxiously from each end.

There seemed to be hundreds of people all around Guido, and some of them
picked him up and asked him questions in a very loud voice, as though
that would make the language they spoke more intelligible. Two men took
him by each arm and talked with him in earnest tones, and punctuated
their questions by shaking him gently. He could not answer them, but
only sobbed, and beat his hands softly together, and looked about him
for a chance to escape. The conductor of the car jerked the strap
violently, and the car went on its way. Guido watched the conductor, as
he stood with his hands in his pockets looking back at him. Guido had a
confused idea that the people on the car might pay him for the plaster
figures which had been scattered in the slush and snow, so that the
heads and arms and legs lay on every side or were ground into heaps of
white powder. But when the car disappeared into the night he gave up
this hope, and pulling himself free from his captor, slipped through the
crowd and ran off into a side street. A man who had seen the accident
had been trying to take up a collection in the crowd, which had grown
less sympathetic and less numerous in consequence, and had gathered more
than the plaster casts were worth; but Guido did not know this, and when
they came to look for him he was gone, and the bareheaded gentleman,
with his hat full of coppers and dimes, was left in much embarrassment.

Guido walked to Washington Square, and sat down on a bench to rest, and
then curled over quickly, and stretching himself out at full length,
wept bitterly. When any one passed he held his breath and pretended to
be asleep. He did not know what he was to do or where he was to go.
Such a calamity as this had never entered into his calculations of the
evils which might overtake him, and it overwhelmed him utterly. A
policeman touched him with his nightstick, and spoke to him kindly
enough, but