“Listen,” said the young man, trying to brush past him, “I’m late, and I don’t have any time to listen. Here’s a dime, now get going.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Johnson, pocketing the dime. “Look,” he said, “what happens if you stop running?”
“I’m late,” said the young man, still trying to get past Mr. Johnson, who was unexpectedly clinging.
“How much do you make an hour?” Mr. Johnson demanded.
“A communist, are you?” said the young man. “Now will you please let me—”
“No,” said Mr. Johnson insistently, “how much?”
“Dollar fifty,” said the young man. “And now will you—”
“You like adventure?”
The young man stared, and, staring, found himself caught and held by Mr. Johnson’s genial smile; he almost smiled back and then repressed it and made an effort to tear away. “I got to hurry,” he said.
“Mystery? Like surprises? Unusual and exciting events?”
“You selling something?”
“Sure,” said Mr. Johnson. “You want to take a chance?”
The young man hesitated, looked longingly up the avenue toward what might have, been his destination and then, when Mr. Johnson said, “I’ll pay for it,” with his own peculiar and convincing emphasis, turned and said, “Well, okay. But I got to see it first, what I’m buying.”
Mr. Johnston, breathing hard, led the young man over to the side where the girl was standing; she had been watching with interest Mr. Johnson’s capture of the young man and now, smiling timidly, she looked at Mr. Johnson as though prepared to be surprised at nothing.
Mr. Johnson reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. “Here,” he said, and handed a bill to the girl. “This about equals your day’s pay.”
“But no,” she said, surprised in spite of herself. “I mean, I couldn’t.”
“Please do not interrupt,” Mr. Johnson told her. “And here,” he said to the young man, “this will take care of you.” The young man accepted the bill dazedly, but said, “Probably counterfeit” to the young woman out of the side of his mouth. “Now,” Mr. Johnson went on, disregarding the young man, “what is your name, miss?”
“Kent,” she said helplessly. “Mildred Kent.”
“Fine,” said Mr. Johnson. “And you, sir?”
“Arthur Adams,” said the young man stiffly.
“Splendid,” said Mr. Johnson. “Now, Miss Kent, I would like you to meet Mr. Adams. Mr. Adams, Miss Kent.”
Miss Kent stared, wet her lips nervously, made a gesture as though she might run, and said, “How do you do?”
Mr. Adams straightened his shoulders, scowled at Mr. Johnson, made a gesture as though he might run, and said, “How do you do?”
“Now this,” said Mr. Johnson, taking several bills from his wallet, “should be enough for the day for both of you. I would suggest, perhaps, Coney Island—although I personally am not fond of the place—or perhaps a nice lunch somewhere, and dancing, or a matinee, or even a movie, although take care to choose a really good one; there are so many bad movies these days. You might,” he said, struck with an inspiration, “visit the Bronx Zoo, or the Planetarium. Anywhere, as a matter of fact,” he concluded, “that you would like to go. Have a nice time.”
As he started to move away Arthur Adams, breaking from his dumbfounded stare, said, “But see here, mister, you can’t do this. Why—how do you know—I mean, we don’t even know—I mean, how do you know we won’t just take the money and not do what you said?”
“You’ve taken the money,” Mr. Johnson said. “You don’t have to follow any of my suggestions. You may know something you prefer to do—perhaps a museum, or something.”
“But suppose I just run away with it and leave her here?”
“I know you won’t,” said Mr. Johnson gently, “because you remembered to ask me that. Goodby,” he added, and went on.
As he stepped up the street, conscious of the sun on his head and his good shoes, he heard from somewhere behind him the young man saying, “Look, you know you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” and the girl saying, “But unless you don’t want to . . .” Mr. Johnson smiled to himself and then thought that he had better hurry along; when he wanted to he could move very quickly, and before the young woman had gotten around to saying, “Well, I will if you will,” Mr. Johnson was several blocks away and had already stopped twice, once to help a lady lift several large packages into a taxi and once to hand a peanut to a seagull. By this time he was in an area of large stores and many more people and he was buffeted constantly from either side by people hurrying and cross and late and sullen. Once he offered a peanut to a man who asked him for a dime, and once he offered a peanut to a bus driver who had stopped his bus at an intersection and had opened the window next to his seat and put out his head as though longing for fresh air and the comparative quiet of the traffic. The man wanting a dime took the peanut because Mr. Johnson had wrapped a dollar bill around it, but the bus driver took the peanut and asked ironically, “You want a transfer, Jack?”
On a busy corner Mr. Johnson encountered two young people—for one minute he thought they might be Mildred Kent and Arthur Adams—who were eagerly scanning a newspaper, their backs pressed against a storefront to avoid the people passing, their heads bent together. Mr. Johnson, whose curiosity was insatiable, leaned onto the storefront next to them and peeked over the man’s shoulder; they were scanning the “Apartments Vacant” columns.
Mr. Johnson remembered the street where the woman and her little boy were going to Vermont and he tapped the man on the shoulder and said amiably, “Try down on West Seventeen. About the middle of the block, people moved out this morning.”
“Say, what do you—” said the man, and then, seeing Mr. Johnson clearly, “Well, thanks. Where did you say?”
“West Seventeen,” said Mr. Johnson. “About the middle of the block.” He smiled again and said, “Good luck.”
“Thanks,” said the man.
“Thanks,” said the girl, as they moved off.
“Goodby,” said Mr. Johnson.
He lunched alone in a pleasant restaurant, where the food was rich, and only Mr. Johnson’s excellent digestion could encompass two of their whipped-cream-and-chocolate-and-rum-cake pastries for dessert. He had three cups of coffee, tipped the waiter largely, and went out into the street again into the wonderful sunlight, his shoes still comfortable and fresh on his feet. Outside he found a beggar staring into the windows of the restaurant he had left and, carefully looking through the money in his pocket, Mr. Johnson approached the beggar and pressed some coins and a couple of bills into his hand. “It’s the price of the veal cutlet lunch plus tip,” said Mr. Johnson. “Goodby.”
After his lunch he rested; he walked into the nearest park and fed peanuts to the pigeons. It was late afternoon by the time he was ready to start back downtown, and he had refereed two checker games and watched a small boy and girl whose mother had fallen asleep and awakened with surprise and fear which turned to amusement when she saw Mr. Johnson. He had given away almost all of his candy, and had fed all the rest of his peanuts to the pigeons, and it was time to go home. Although the late afternoon sun was pleasant, and his shoes were still entirely comfortable, he decided to take a taxi downtown.
He had a difficult time catching a taxi, because he gave up the first three or four empty ones to people who seemed to need them more; finally, however, he stood alone on the corner and—almost like netting a frisky fish—he hailed desperately until he succeeded in catching a cab which had been proceeding with haste uptown and seemed to draw in towards Mr. Johnson against its own will.