"Come, come!" she said as he pretended to jostle against her on
the curbstone without noticing her; "you had best go to work.
Loafing at ten o'clock on the street corners--the idea!"
"It IS not--it can not be--and yet it is--it is SHE," he
burlesqued; "and after all these years!" Then in his natural
voice: "Hello T.B."
"Hello, C.R."
"Where are you going?'
"Home. I've just run down for half an hour to have the head of my
banjo tightened."
"If I put you on the car, will you expect me to pay your car-
fare?"
Condy Rivers, I've long since got over the idea of ever expecting
you to have any change concealed about your person."
"Huh! no, it all goes for theatre tickets, and flowers, and boxes
of candy for a certain girl I know. But"--and he glared at her
significantly--"no more foolishness."
She laughed. "What are you 'on' this morning, Condy?"
Condy told her as they started to walk toward Kearney Street.
But why DON'T you go to the dock and see the vessel, if you can
make a better article that way?"
"Oh, what's the good! The Centennial people have turned down my
stories."
She commiserated him for this; then suddenly exclaimed:
"No, you must go down to the dock! You ought to, Condy Oh, I tell
you, let me go down with you!"
In an instant Condy leaped to the notion. "Splendid! splendid! no
reason why you shouldn't!" he exclaimed. And within fifteen
minutes the two were treading the wharves and quays of the city's
water-front.
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