"Do you think you"re a racing runabout and I"m a curve?"
Brown waved him away impatiently.
"I tell you that something most astonishing is going to occur--in a cherry-colored tram car.... And somehow there"ll be some reason for me to get into it."
"Into what?"
"Into that cherry-colored car, because--because--there"ll be a wicker basket in it--somebody holding a wicker basket--and there"ll be--there"ll be--a--a--white summer gown--and a big white hat----"
Smith stared at his friend in grief and amazement. Brown stood balancing himself on the gutter"s edge, pale, rapt, uttering incoherent prophecy concerning the advent of a car not yet visible anywhere in the immediate metropolitan vista.
"Old man," began Smith with emotion, "I think you had better come very quietly somewhere with me. I--I want to show you something pretty and nice."
"Hark!" exclaimed Brown.
"Sure, I"ll hark for you," said Smith, soothingly, "or I"ll bark for you if you like, or anything if you"ll just come quietly."
"The cherry-colored car!" cried Brown, laboring under tremendous emotion.
"Look, Smithy! That is the car!"
"Sure, it is! I see it, old man. They run "em every five minutes. What the devil is there to astonish anybody about a cross-town cruiser with a red water line?"
"Look!" insisted Brown, now almost beside himself. "The wicker basket!
The summer gown! Exactly as I foretold it! The big straw hat!--the--the _girl!_"
And shoving Smith violently away he galloped after the cherry-colored car, caught it, swung himself aboard, and sank triumphant and breathless into the transverse seat behind that occupied by a wicker basket, a filmy summer frock, a big, white straw hat, and--a girl--the most amazingly pretty girl he had ever laid eyes on. After him, headlong, like a distracted chicken, rushed Smith and alighted beside him, panting, menacing.
"Wha"--dyeh--board--this--car--for!" he gasped, sliding fiercely up beside Brown. "Get off or I"ll drag you off!"
But Brown only shook his head with an infatuated smile.
"Is it that girl?" said Smith, incensed. "Are you a--a Broadway Don Juan, or are you a respectable lawyer with a glimmering sense of common decency and an intention to keep a social engagement at the Carringtons" to-day?"
And Smith drew out his timepiece and flourished it furiously under Brown"s handsome and sun-tanned nose.
But Brown only slid along the seat away from him, saying:
"Don"t bother me, Jim; this is too momentous a crisis in my life to have a well-intentioned but intellectually dwarfed friend b.u.t.ting into me and running about under foot."
"Intellectually d-d--do you mean _me?_" asked Smith, unable to believe his ears. "_Do_ you?"
"Yes, I do! Because a miracle suddenly happens to me on Forty-second Street, and you, with your mind of a stockbroker, unable to appreciate it, come clattering and clamoring after me about a house party--a common- place, every-day, social appointment, when I have a full-blown miracle on my hands!"
"What miracle?" faltered Smith, stupefied.
"What miracle? Haven"t I been telling you that I"ve been having that queer sense that all this has happened before? Didn"t I suddenly begin-- as though compelled by some unseen power--to foretell things? Didn"t I prophesy the coming of this cross-town car? Didn"t I even name its color before it came into sight? Didn"t I warn you that I"d probably get into it? Didn"t I reveal to you that a big straw hat and a pretty summer gown----"
"Confound it!" almost shouted Smith, "There are about five thousand cherry-colored cross-town cars in this town. There are about five million white hats and dresses in this borough. There are five billion girls wearing "em----!" "Yes; but the _wicker basket_" breathed Brown. "How do you account for _that?_... And, anyway, you annoy me, Smith. Why don"t you get out of the car and go somewhere?"
"I want to know where you are going before I knock your head off."
"I don"t know," replied Brown, serenely.
"Are you actually attempting to follow that girl?" whispered Smith, horrified.
"Yes.... It sounds low, doesn"t it? But it really isn"t. It is something I can"t explain--you couldn"t understand even if I tried to enlighten you. The sentiment I harbor is too lofty for some to comprehend, too vague, too pure, too ethereal for----"
"I"m as lofty and ethereal as you are!" retorted Smith, hotly. "And I know a--an ethereal Lothario when I see him, too!"
"I"m not--though it looks like it--and I forgive you, Smithy, for losing your temper and using such language."
"Oh, you do?" said Smith, grinning with rage.
"Yes," nodded Brown, kindly. "I forgive you, but don"t call me that again. You mean well, but I"m going to find out at last what all this maddening, tantalizing, unexplained and mysterious feeling that it all has occurred before really is. I"m going to trace it to its source; I"m going to compare notes with this highly intelligent girl."
"You"re going to _speak_ to her?"
"I am. I must. How else can I compare data."
"I hope she"ll call the police. If she doesn"t _I_ will."
"Don"t worry. She"s part of this strange situation. She"ll comprehend as soon as I begin to explain. She is intelligent; you only have to look at her to understand that."
Smith choking with impotent fury, nevertheless ventured a swift glance.
Her undeniable beauty only exasperated him. "To think--to _think_," he burst out, "that a modest, decent, law-loving business man like me should suddenly awake to find his boyhood friend had turned into a G.o.dless votary of Venus!"
"I"m not a votary of Venus!" retorted Brown, turning pink. "I"ll punch you if you say it again. I"m as decent and respectable a business man as you are! And my grammar is better. And, thank Heaven! I"ve intellect enough to recognize a miracle when it happens to me.... Do you think I am capable of harboring any sentiments that might bring the blush of coquetry to the cheek of modesty? Do you?"
"Well--well, _I_ don"t know what you"re up to!" Smith raised his voice in bewilderment and despair. "I don"t know what possesses you to act this way. People don"t experience miracles in New York cross-town cars. The wildest stretch of imagination could only make a coincidence out of this.
There are trillions of girls in cross-town cars dressed just like this one."
"But the basket!"
"Another coincidence. There are quadrillions of wicker baskets."
"Not," said Brown, "with the contents of this one."
"Why not?"
Smith instinctively turned to look at the basket balanced daintily on the girl"s knees.
He strove to penetrate its wicker exterior with concentrated gaze. He could see nothing but wicker.
"Well," he began angrily, "what _is_ in that basket? And how do _you_ know it--you lunatic?"
"Will you believe me if I tell you?"
"If you can offer any corroborative evidence----"