He set his finger between the leaves of his book and took his hat in his hand.
“Your pardon!” he pleaded. “I stumbled here quite by accident. Please suspend conversation on private matters until I can walk out of earshot.”
He stared straight into the eyes of the girl and once more received from her that frank and wondering gaze which had touched him so strangely when he had seen her first on the broad highway. His face was white under the tan. His hands trembled as he replaced his hat. In his heart he was saying farewell to her and his eyes expressed some of his emotion.
“You may take your own time, sir,” said the girl. “This gentleman and I have finished our conversation.” She passed Farr, looking him up and down with increasing curiosity and dawning recognition, and when her escort called to her impatiently, she caught her skirts around her and ran toward the glade where the others of the party were chattering over their hampers.
The lover started away slowly and sullenly on her trail, with only a glance at this blundering stranger.
“No, they do not sing serenades under windows any more--nor has the stone age returned with its love-making manners,” remarked Farr, his lips trembling and his emotion still in his eyes. “There are some manners which were worse, however, than knocking maidens down with clubs.”
The other man snapped himself around on his heels.
“Damn you, you're that fresh hobo! I don't forget a man who shoots off low-down sneers at me. Here! You come back here! I want to ask a few questions, my man.”
Farr continued on his way, opening his book.
“If I ever see you again--” blustered the lover.
“I sincerely hope that will never happen,” remarked the stranger, without turning his head. “Instinct of the purely animal sort tells me that if our paths cross in this life it will be very bad for one or the other.”
When Farr was in the highway he fumbled in his pocket and found the withered rose. He tossed it away among the roadside bushes.
But after he had gone on his way for some distance he retraced his steps and hunted in the bushes for a long time on his hands and knees until he found the poor little keepsake.
He put it carefully into the deepest pocket he could find in his newly acquired habiliments and trudged on down the world.
VI
A MAN ON FOOT AND A MAN IN HIS CHARIOT
A blatant orator, haranguing passionately, attracted two new auditors.
A tall young man sauntered to the edge of the little group in the square and listened with a smile which indicated cynical half-interest.
An automobile halted on the opposite side of the group. A big man sat alone in the tonneau.
He began to scowl as he listened.
The young man continued to smile.
The big man was plainly a personality. He was cool and crisp in summer flannels--as immaculate as the accoutrements of his car.
In face and physique the young man was plainly not of that herd near which he stood.
His glance crossed that of the man in the car; he met the scowl with his smile.
Like a kiln open to the hot glare from a brassy sky or an oven where the July caloric blazed like a blast from the open mouth of a retort--such that day seemed Moosac Square in the heart of the cotton-mill city. High buildings closed in its treeless, ill-paved, dirty area. The air, made blistering by the torch of the sun, beat back and forth between the buildings in shimmering waves.
In the center of the square the blatant orator balanced himself on a stone trough which was arid and dust-choked. He harangued the group of unkempt men; sweating, blinking, apathetic men; slouchy men; men who were ticketed in attire and demeanor with all the squalid marks of idlers, vagrants, and the unemployed.
The man on the trough was of the ilk of the men who surrounded him. His face was flaming with the heat and with his vocal efforts. Perspiration streamed into his eyes, his voice was hoarse with shouting, but he had the natural eloquence of the demagogue. He was delivering the creed of the propaganda of rebellious poverty, the complaints of the dissatisfied, the demands of the idle agitators. He spiked his diatribe with threats flavored by anarchy. He pointed to policemen who had taken refuge in strips of shade which had been cast grudgingly by the high buildings. He reminded his hearers that those policemen had just driven them out of the tree-shaded parks. There the selfish rich folks were loafing under the trees. Poor folks were herded down the street and were forced to hold this meeting in that Gehenna, so he averred.
The man in the automobile muttered impatient words. Then he shouted, breaking in on the impassioned anathema which the orator addressed to the rich: “Stop lying to these men--stirring them up. The parks are for the people. You can go there--all you men can go there--if you'll go without making a disturbance.”
“If men in these days open their mouths to speak for their human rights it's a disturbance,” retorted the demagogue. “If we go up to the park and sit there and tremble like rabbits you rich men will let us stay there--perhaps! But we don't have as many rights there as the rabbits, for the rabbits are allowed to step on the grass.”
“You've got to obey the law like other citizens--you will not be allowed to disturb decent and respectable people. You and men like you must stop putting foolish notions in the heads of loafers in this city.”
“Then put something into our mouths--give us food. Why are we loafers?”
“Because you won't go to work. I'll give every able-bodied man here all the work he wants. Apply at the office of the Consolidated Water Company--now.”
“What's the work?” inquired a man in the crowd.
“Digging trenches for water-pipes. How many men want that work? Hold up hands.”
“It ain't work for human beings in this weather,” snarled the man who had inquired. No hands were raised.
“That's your style!” blazed the big man. The policemen had sauntered into the square and their presence was reassuring. He stood up and began to lecture them.
“And them's the kind of lord dukes that's running this country to-day--own it and run it,” growled a slouchy fellow who stood near the tall young man. “They ain't willing to give a poor man a show.”
“He has just offered you a show--all of you,” stated the young man.
“Yes, a Guinea job for white men.”
“You're picking a poor excuse for being a loafer, my friend.”
“Who says I'm a loafer?”
The young man shot out his hands and grasped the fellow's elbow and hand. The arm was flabby, the palm was soft. He doubled back the fingers and exhibited the palm to the crowd.
“I don't find any labor medals here, men. Is there anybody in the crowd who can show some?” He released the struggling, cursing captive.
“What's labor medals?” inquired a bystander.
The big man was still denouncing them from his car, but the group paid little attention now.
“Callous spots in the place where a working-man ought to wear them. And that place isn't on the tongue.”
“Are you sneering at us because we can't get a job?”
“You're a loafer yourself, and anybody can see it,” declared another.
The young man raised his arms, showing them his palms.
“I carry a few labor medals,” he returned, curtly.
“Why ain't you on your job? The lord dukes won't give you one?”
“_When_ I work and _where_ I work is my own business, so long as I don't beg food at back doors.”
“Do _we_?”
They had crowded around him and menaced him with murmurings and glowering gaze.
“I should say so,” he replied, giving them an indifferent going-over with his cold eyes. “You carry all the marks.”
Then he shouldered his way out from among them, displaying the air of one who found further discourse unprofitable.
He strolled leisurely in the direction of the big man in the car. The crowd he had left stared after him without presuming to voice taunt or reply; there was something compelling about him.
As Farr approached the automobile its owner stopped talking and stared at the tall stranger with some apprehension. Then the big man beckoned unobtrusively to a policeman. It was evident that Farr was not of the same sort as the ruck of men from among whom he had just emerged, nevertheless he had come from among them. The lordly man in the car had observed him moving in the group, for Farr had loomed above the heads of the others; what he had been saying to the malcontents the big man had not been able to hear, but he guessed.
“Some sort of sneak has been stirring up the fools in this city lately,” the aristocrat informed the officer who came promptly to the side of the car. “Who is this fellow coming?”
“I never saw him before, Colonel Dodd.”
“Stand by! He is going to tackle me and make a grand-stand play in front of his gang. His clothes give him away--a loafing demagogue!”
But the tall man did not pause at the car or even glance at the dignitary who occupied it. He seemed to have lost all interest in the occasion. He yawned as he passed the automobile and started away across the square.
“Here, you! You big chap!” called Colonel Dodd, promptly emboldened.
Farr halted and turned, his countenance showing mild inquiry.