The only problem with regard to such a man is who will get him first.
Fate had decided that it should be Lora Delane Porter.
To-day Mrs. Porter, having circled the park in rapid time, turned her
car down Central Park West. She was feeling much refreshed by the
pleasant air. She was conscious of a glow of benevolence toward her
species, not excluding even the young couple she had almost reduced to
mincemeat in the neighbourhood of Ninety-Seventh Street. They had
annoyed her extremely at the time of their meeting by occupying till
the last possible moment a part of the road which she wanted herself.
On reaching Sixty-First Street she found her way blocked by a lumbering
delivery wagon. She followed it slowly for a while; then, growing tired
of being merely a unit in a procession, tugged at the steering-wheel,
and turned to the right.
George Pennicut, his anxious eyes raking the middle distance, as
usual, in the wrong direction, had just stepped off the kerb. He
received the automobile in the small of the back, uttered a yell of
surprise and dismay, performed a few improvised Texas Tommy steps, and
fell in a heap.
In a situation which might have stimulated another to fervid speech,
George Pennicut contented himself with saying "Goo!" He was a man of
few words.
Mrs. Porter stopped the car. From all points of the compass citizens
began to assemble, many swallowing their chewing-gum in their
excitement. One, a devout believer in the inscrutable ways of
Providence, told a friend as he ran that only two minutes before he had
almost robbed himself of this spectacle by going into a moving-picture
palace.
Mrs. Porter was annoyed. She had never run over anything before except
a few chickens, and she regarded the incident as a blot on her
escutcheon. She was incensed with this idiot who had flung himself
before her car, not reflecting in her heat that he probably had a
pre-natal tendency to this sort of thing inherited from some ancestor
who had played "last across" in front of hansom cabs in the streets of
London.
She bent over George and passed experienced hands over his portly form.
For this remarkable woman was as competent at first aid as at anything
else. The citizens gathered silently round in a circle.
"It was your fault," she said to her victim severely. "I accept no
liability whatever. I did not run into you. You ran into me. I have a
jolly good mind to have you arrested for attempted suicide."
This aspect of the affair had not struck Mr. Pennicut. Presented to him
in these simple words, it checked the recriminatory speech which, his
mind having recovered to some extent from the first shock of the
meeting, he had intended to deliver. He swallowed his words, awed. He
felt dazed and helpless. Mrs. Porter had that effect upon men.
Some more citizens arrived.
"No bones broken," reported Mrs. Porter, concluding her examination.
"You are exceedingly fortunate. You have a few bruises, and one knee is
slightly wrenched. Nothing to signify. More frightened than hurt. Where
do you live?"
"There," said George meekly.
"Where?"
"Them studios."
"No. 90?"
"Yes, ma'am." George's voice was that of a crushed worm.
"Are you an artist?"
"No, ma'am. I'm Mr. Winfield's man."
"Whose?"
"Mr. Winfield's, ma'am."
"Is he in?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"I'll fetch him. And if the policeman comes along and wants to know why
you're lying there, mind you tell him the truth, that you ran into me."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Very well. Don't forget."
"No, ma'am."
She crossed the street and rang the bell over which was a card hearing
the name of "Kirk Winfield". Mr. Pennicut watched her in silence.
Mrs. Porter pressed the button a second time. Somebody came at a
leisurely pace down the passage, whistling cheerfully. The door opened.
It did not often happen to Lora Delane Porter to feel insignificant,
least of all in the presence of the opposite sex. She had well-defined
views upon man. Yet, in the interval which elapsed between the opening
of the door and her first words, a certain sensation of smallness
overcame her.
The man who had opened the door was not, judged by any standard of
regularity of features, handsome. He had a rather boyish face, pleasant
eyes set wide apart, and a friendly mouth. He was rather an outsize in
young men, and as he stood there he seemed to fill the doorway.
It was this sense of bigness that he conveyed, his cleanness, his
magnificent fitness, that for the moment overcame Mrs. Porter. Physical
fitness was her gospel. She stared at him in silent appreciation.
To the young man, however, her forceful gaze did not convey this
quality. She seemed to him to be looking as if she had caught him in
the act of endeavouring to snatch her purse. He had been thrown a
little off his balance by the encounter.
Resource in moments of crisis is largely a matter of preparedness, and
a man, who, having opened his door in the expectation of seeing a
ginger-haired, bow-legged, grinning George Pennicut, is confronted by a
masterful woman with eyes like gimlets, may be excused for not guessing
that her piercing stare is an expression of admiration and respect.
Mrs. Porter broke the silence. It was ever her way to come swiftly to
the matter in hand.
"Mr. Kirk Winfield?"
"Yes."
"Have you in your employment a red-haired, congenital idiot who ambles
about New York in an absent-minded way, as if he were on a desert
island? The man I refer to is a short, stout Englishman, clean-shaven,
dressed in black."
"That sounds like George Pennicut."
"I have no doubt that that is his name. I did not inquire. It did not
interest me. My name is Mrs. Lora Delane Porter. This man of yours has
just run into my automobile."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I cannot put it more lucidly. I was driving along the street when this
weak-minded person flung himself in front of my car. He is out there
now. Kindly come and help him in."
"Is he hurt?"
"More frightened than hurt. I have examined him. His left knee appears
to be slightly wrenched."
Kirk Winfield passed a hand over his left forehead and followed her.
Like George, he found Mrs. Porter a trifle overwhelming.
Out in the street George Pennicut, now the centre of quite a
substantial section of the Four Million, was causing a granite-faced
policeman to think that the age of miracles had returned by informing
him that the accident had been his fault and no other's. He greeted the
relief-party with a wan grin.
"Just broke my leg, sir," he announced to Kirk.
"You have done nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Porter. "You have
wrenched your knee very slightly. Have you explained to the policeman
that it was entirely your fault?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"That's right. Always speak the truth."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Mr. Winfield will help you indoors."
"Thank you, ma'am."
She turned to Kirk.
"Now, Mr. Winfield."
Kirk bent over the victim, gripped him, and lifted him like a baby.
"He's got his," observed one interested spectator.
"I should worry!" agreed another. "All broken up."
"Nothing of the kind," said Mrs. Porter severely. "The man is hardly
hurt at all. Be more accurate in your remarks."
She eyed the speaker sternly. He wilted.
"Yes, ma'am," he mumbled sheepishly.
The policeman, with that lionlike courage which makes the New York
constabulary what it is, endeavoured to assert himself at this point.