“How much to the Hotel Von Gorder?”  

“’Bout forty cents,” returned the tough, as one disdaining such petty considerations.  

“Thank you,” returned E. Van Tenner politely, and entered the amount on his tablet. “I’ll walk.”  

“Walk!” bellowed the outraged chauffeur. “Whaddaya tryin’ to do--kid me?”  

The protrusive jaw was thrust up under E. Van Tenner’s retiring nose.  

The small, greenish eyes bored into his. “Yuh took me,” snarled their owner. “Now gidin!”  

Ordinarily a pacifist in all personal relations E. Van Tenner would, unsupported by ulterior influences, have meekly obeyed rather than risk a verbal or possibly physical encounter. But magic is magic and will carry him whom it upholds by its might through the imminent deadly breach even to the cabby’s mouth. Something tingled upward from the hand that held the beggar’s purse; something that snapped back E. Van Tenner’s spare shoulders to a springy squareness and fired his brain and nerved his voice; and with unutterable surprise he heard himself speak in tones that were more than peremptory, that had the flick and sting of a military command:  

“Where is your draft registration card?” The red and savage face turned pallid and receded. The gorilla frame drooped away, then gathered itself and sprang--not upon E. Van Tenner but upon the driver’s seat of the taxi, which straightway departed with snorts of pain and terror.  

“Well, well!” thought E. Van Tenner, inexpressibly shocked at his new self. “In another moment I should have hit that fellow upon the nose. I am sure that I should.”  

A wild, infuriated yell from the motorman of a cable car, which the routed taxi had missed by a scant inch, drew E. Van Tenner’s eyes to the legend on the car, which, he perceived, ran within one block of his hotel. To save time he jumped aboard, and reached his destination as quickly as he would have done in the taxicab. On the way he corrected his entry by deducting five cents for fare; then on reflection added fifteen cents as the probable tip to the chauffeur, this representing the sheer blackmail of the dread of being considered a short sport. At the journey’s end his account read:  

Station porter $0.15  
Parlor car .55  
Pullman porter .25  

 Prev. P 3/18 next