had split and flowed about and past it, stalled there doubtless
while the red-faced chauffeur wiped the blood out of his eyes and
wondered if a street car had struck him.

"Do you habitually reprove ill-bred persons in that vigorous manner?"

He became aware of Sophie speaking. He looked at her. So far as he could
gather from her profile she was quite unperturbed, making her way among
the traffic that is always like a troubled sea between Third and the
Ferry Building.

"No," he replied diffidently. "I daresay I'd be in jail or the hospital
most of the time if I did. Still, that was rather a rank case. I'm not
sorry I bumped him. He'll be civil to the next woman he meets."

What he did not attempt to explain to Sophie, a matter he scarcely
fathomed himself, was his precipitancy, this going off "half-cocked", as
he put it. He wasn't given to quick bursts of temper. It was as if he
had been holding himself in and the self-contained pressure had grown
acute when the insolent chauffeur presented himself as a relief valve.
He felt a little ashamed now.

Sophie swung the roadster in to the curb before the express office.
Thompson got out.

"Good-by till this evening, then," he said. "I'll be there if the police
don't get me."

"If they do," she smiled, "telephone and dad will come down and bail you
out. Good-by, Mr. Thompson."

Ten minutes or so later he emerged from the express office with a
suitcase, a canvas bag, and a roll of blankets. He had no false pride
about people seeing him with his worldly goods upon his back, so to
speak, wherefore he crossed the street and trudged half a block to a
corner where he could catch a car that would carry him out Market to his
old rooming place.

And, since this was a day in which events trod upon each other's heels
to reach him, it befell that as he loitered on the curb a gray touring
car rolled up, stopped, and a short, stout man emerging therefrom
disappeared hurriedly within the portals of an office building.
Thompson's gaze rested speculatively on the machine. Gray cars were
common enough. But without a doubt this was the same vehicle. The
chauffeur in the peaked cap was not among those present--but Thompson
could take oath on the other two. The young man sat behind the steering
wheel.

He, too, it presently transpired, was spurred by recognition. His roving
eyes alighted upon Thompson with a reminiscent gleam. He edged over in
his seat. Thompson stood almost at the fr