the step was
another too-large policeman helping an uncertain old lady to the ground,
so he slinkingly insinuated himself to the far corner of the platform,
where, for forty city blocks, a whistling messenger boy gored his right
side with the corners of an unyielding box while a dreamy-eyed man who,
as Bulger would have said, had apparently been sopping it up like you
see some do, leaned a friendly elbow on his shoulder, dented his new hat
and from time to time stepped elaborately on his natty shoes with the
blue cloth uppers. Also, the conductor demanded and received a second
fare from him. What was the use of saying you had paid inside? The
conductor was a desperate looking man who would probably say he knew
that game, and stop the car....

Something of the sort always happened to him in street cars. It was bad
enough when you walked, with people jostling you and looking as if they
wondered what right you had to be there.

At last came the street down which he made a daily pilgrimage and he
popped from the crowd on the platform like a seed squeezed from an
orange.

Reaching the curb alive--the crossing policeman graciously halted a huge
motor-truck driven by a speed-enthusiast--he corrected the latest dent
in his hat, straightened his cravat, readjusted the shoulder lines of
the coat appertaining to America's greatest eighteen-dollar
suit--"$18.00--No More; No Less!"--and with a fear-quickened hand
discovered that his watch was gone, his gold hunting-case watch and
horseshoe fob set with brilliants, that Aunt Clara had given him on his
twenty-first birthday for not smoking!

A moment he stood, raging, fearing. His money was safe, but they might
decide to come back for that. Or the policeman might come up and make an
ugly row because he had let himself be robbed in a public conveyance. He
would have to prove that the watch was his; probably have to tell why
Aunt Clara had given it to him.

With a philosophy peculiarly his own, a spirit of wise submission that
was more than once to serve him well, he pulled his hat sharply down,
braced and squared such appearance of perfect physical development as
the eighteen dollars had achieved, and walked away. He had always known
the watch would go. Now it was gone, no more worry. Good enough! As he
walked he rehearsed an explanation to Bulger: cleverly worded
intimations that the watch had been pawned to meet a certain quick
demand on his resources not morally to his credit