A large man in uniform
came solicitously to help him descend and gave him a fragment of
cardboard which he knew would redeem his motor.
He was seated at a table looking down upon the shining river.
"Tea and things," he said to the waiter.
"Yes, sir; black or green, sir?"
"Bottle ginger ale!" How did he know whether he wanted black or green
tea. No time to be fussy.
He began a lordly survey of the people at neighbouring tables--people
who had doubtless walked there, or come in hired cabs, at the best.
Hired cabs had yesterday seemed impressive to him; now they were rather
vulgar. Of course, there might be circumstances--
He froze like a pointing dog. At a table not twenty feet distant,
actually in the flesh, sat the Greatest Pitcher the World Has Ever
Known. For a moment he could only stare fixedly. The man was simply
_there_! He was talking volubly to two other men, and he was also eating
a mere raspberry ice!
It showed how things "worked around," once you got started. Hadn't his
whole life been a proof of this? How many times had he wished he might
happen upon that Pitcher just as he was now, in street clothes--to look
at him, study him! He wished _he_ had ordered raspberry ice instead of
ginger ale, which he didn't like. He would order one anyway.
It was all Ram-tah. If you knew you were a king, you needn't ever worry
again. You sat still and let things come to you.
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