We landed upon the sidewalk. We struggled and beat and threshed at the coal, and finally managed to rise out of it--pitch black, dazed and battered.
And the first object which confronted us was the home of Hawkins! We had been delivered at his door, with the four tons of nut-coal.
"They"ll have to sign for us on the driver"s slip," I remember saying.
That person let off one shriek and vanished down the street. Then the door of the Hawkins home opened, and Mrs. Hawkins emerged, followed by my wife.
That numerous things were said need not be stated. Mrs. Hawkins said most of them, and they were luminous.
Mrs. Griggs limited herself to ruining a fifty-dollar gown by weeping on my coal-soiled shoulder as she implored me never again to tread the same street with Hawkins.
It was a solemn moment, that; for I saw the light. I realized how many b.u.mps and bruises and pains and duckings and scorchings might have been spared me, had I taken the step earlier.
But it is never too late to mend. Probably I had still a few years in which to enjoy life.
I turned to Hawkins--a chopfallen, cowering huddle of filth, standing upon two pearl-and-black legs--and said:
"Hawkins, when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one man to sever those friendly bands which have connected him with another, and to a.s.sume a station apart, a decent respect for the opinions of the latter usually make it necessary to declare the cause of that separation. It is not so in this case. You know mighty well what you"ve put me through in the past. There"s no need of going into it.
"But this Crano-Scale business is my limit--my outside limit," I went on, "and you"ve pa.s.sed it. If you ever attempt to address another word to me, or ride in the same elevated train, or even sit in the same theatre, I"ll have you arrested as a suspicious person--and locked up for life, if money"ll do it! Hawkins, henceforth we meet as strangers!"
And Hawkins, piloted by the unhappy woman who bears his name, walked up the steps, turned and stared stupidly at me, and then stumbled into the house and out of my life--forever.