The Turmoil Booth Tarkington (best reads .txt) 📖

habits of the old market-town period, and would cross the street anywhere and anyhow, which not only got them killed more frequently than if they clung to the legal crossings, but kept the motormen, the chauffeurs, and the truck-drivers in a stew of profane nervousness. So the traffic policemen led harried lives; they themselves were killed, of course, with a certain periodicity, but their main trouble was that they could not make the citizens realize that it was actually and mortally perilous to go about their city. It was strange, for there were probably no citizens of any length of residence who had not personally known either someone who had been killed or injured in an accident, or someone who had accidentally killed or injured others. And yet, perhaps it was not strange, seeing the sharp preoccupation of the faces⁠—the people had something on their minds; they could not stop to bother about dirt and danger.

Mary Vertrees was not often downtown; she had never seen an accident until this afternoon. She had come upon errands for her mother connected with a timorous refurbishment; and as she did these, in and out of the department stores, she had an insistent consciousness of the Sheridan Building. From the street, anywhere, it was almost always in sight, like some monstrous geometrical shadow, murk-colored and rising limitlessly into the swimming heights of the smoke-mist. It was gaunt and grimy and repellent; it had nothing but strength and size⁠—but in that consciousness of Mary’s the great structure may have partaken of beauty. Sheridan had made some of the things he said emphatic enough to remain with her. She went over and over them⁠—and they began to seem true: “Only one girl he could feel that sorry for!” “Gurney says he’s got you on his brain so bad⁠—” The man’s clumsy talk began to sing in her heart. The song was begun there when she saw the accident.

She was directly opposite the Sheridan Building then, waiting for the traffic to thin before she crossed, though other people were risking the passage, darting and halting and dodging parlously. Two men came from the crowd behind her, talking earnestly, and started across. Both wore black; one was tall and broad and thick, and the other was taller, but noticeably slender. And Mary caught her breath, for they were Bibbs and his father. They did not see her, and she caught a phrase in Bibbs’s mellow voice, which had taken a crisper ring: “Sixty-eight thousand dollars? Not sixty-eight thousand buttons!” It startled her queerly, and as there was a glimpse of his profile she saw for the first time a resemblance to his father.

She watched them. In the middle of the street Bibbs had to step ahead of his father, and the two were separated. But the reckless passing of a truck, beyond the second line of rails, frightened a group of country women who were in course of passage; they were just in front of Bibbs, and shoved backward upon him violently. To extricate himself from them he stepped back, directly in front of a moving trolley-car⁠—no place for absentmindedness, but Bibbs was still absorbed in thoughts concerned with what he had been saying to his father. There were shrieks and yells; Bibbs looked the wrong way⁠—and then Mary saw the heavy figure of Sheridan plunge straight forward in front of the car. With absolute disregard of his own life, he hurled himself at Bibbs like a football-player shunting off an opponent, and to Mary it seemed that they both went down together. But that was all she could see⁠—automobiles, trucks, and wagons closed in between. She made out that the trolley-car stopped jerkily, and she saw a policeman breaking his way through the instantly condensing crowd, while the traffic came to a standstill, and people stood up in automobiles or climbed upon the hubs and tires of wheels, not to miss a chance of seeing anything horrible.

Mary tried to get through; it was impossible. Other policemen came to help the first, and in a minute or two the traffic was in motion again. The crowd became pliant, dispersing⁠—there was no figure upon the ground, and no ambulance came. But one of the policemen was detained by the clinging and beseeching of a gloved hand.

“What is the matter, lady?”

“Where are they?” Mary cried.

“Who? Ole man Sheridan? I reckon he wasn’t much hurt!”

“His son⁠—”

“Was that who the other one was? I seen him knock him⁠—oh, he’s not bad off, I guess, lady. The ole man got him out of the way all right. The fender shoved the ole man around some, but I reckon he only got shook up. They both went on in the Sheridan Building without any help. Excuse me, lady.”

Sheridan and Bibbs, in fact, were at that moment in the elevator, ascending. “Whisk-broom up in the office,” Sheridan was saying. “You got to look out on those corners nowadays, I tell you. I don’t know I got any call to blow, though⁠—because I tried to cross after you did. That’s how I happened to run into you. Well, you want to remember to look out after this. We were talkin’ about Murtrie’s askin’ sixty-eight thousand flat for that ninety-nine-year lease. It’s his lookout if he’d rather take it that way, and I don’t know but⁠—”

“No,” said Bibbs, emphatically, as the elevator stopped; “he won’t get it. Not from us, he won’t, and I’ll show you why. I can convince you in five minutes.” He followed his father into the office anteroom⁠—and convinced him. Then, having been diligently brushed by a youth of color, Bibbs went into his own room and closed the door.

He was more shaken than he had allowed his father to perceive, and his side was sore where Sheridan had struck him. He desired to be alone; he wanted to rub himself and, for once, to do some useless thinking again. He knew that his father had not “happened” to run into him; he