People in street-cars
looked enviously out at him. He lolled urbanely, with a large public
manner. When you were a king you behaved like one, and the world knelt
to you. Great pitchers sitting under the same roof with you; red
motor-cars; fumed oak dining-rooms; flappers; brokers; shares. He wished
he had thought to chew an unlighted cigar in this resplendent chariot.
There seemed to be almost a public demand for it. Certain things were
expected of a man!
"Be here at four-thirty," he directed.
And Paul, his fellow, glancing up along the twenty-two stories of the
office building, was impressed. He considered it probable that the bored
young man owned this building. "The guys that have gits!" thought Paul.
Bean was preposterously working once more, playing the part of a cog on
the wheel. Another day, it seemed, of that grotesque nonsense, even
after the world's Greatest Pitcher had sat not twenty feet from him the
night before, eating raspberry ice. But events could not long endure
_that_ strain. Before the day was over Breede would undoubtedly "fire"
him, with two or three badly chosen words; actually go through the form
of discharging a man who had once ruled all Egypt with a kindly but an
iron hand!
Of course, the fellow was unconscious of this, as he still must be of
the rare joke the flapper was exquisitely holding over his head. His
demeanour toward Bean betrayed no recognition of shares or pitchers or
big red cars, nor of the ever-impending change in their relationship.
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