Comprehending, at length, that he had irritated
the news-dealer, he meandered off, jingling his copper-fortune in
one hand, lugging his newspapers in the other, and made a
determined onslaught upon a slot machine. The latter having
reluctantly disgorged twenty-four assorted samples of chewing-gum
and stale sweetmeats, Maitland returned to the washerwoman, and
sowed dissension in her brood by presenting the treasure-horde to
the eldest girl with instructions to share it with her brothers
and sisters.
It is difficult to imagine what folly might next have been
recorded against him had not, at that moment, a ferocious and
inarticulate howl from the train-starter announced the fact that
the ten-fifty-nine was in waiting.
Boarding the train in a thankful spirit, Maitland settled himself
as comfortably as he might in the smoker and endeavored to find
surcease of ennui in his collection of extras. In vain: even a
two-column portrait of Mr. Dan Anisty, cracksman, accompanied by a
vivacious catalogue of that notoriety's achievements in the field
of polite burglary, hardly stirred his interest. An elusive
resemblance which he traced in the features of Mr. Anisty, as
presented by the Sketch-Artist-on-the-Spot, to some one whom he,
Maitland, had known in the dark backwards and abysm of time,
merely drew from him the comment: "Homely brute!" And he laid the
papers aside, cradling his chin in the palm of one hand and
staring for a weary while out of the car window at a reeling and
moonsmitten landscape.
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