"She asked permission to withhold her name."
"Didn"t she ask you to subscribe?"
"No; she merely asked for the use of my name as reference for future clients if The Green Mouse Society was successful in my case."
"What did you say?"
Brown laughed. "I said that if any individual or group of individuals could induce me, within a year, to fall in love with and pay court to any living specimen of human woman I"d cheerfully admit it from the house- tops and take pleasure in recommending The Green Mouse to everybody I knew who yet remained unmarried."
They both laughed.
"What rot we"ve been talking," observed Smith, rising and picking up his suitcase. "Here"s our station, and we"d better hustle or we"ll lose the boat. I wouldn"t miss that week-end party for the world!"
"Neither would I," said Beekman Brown.
IX
A CROSS-TOWN CAR
_Concerning the Sudden Madness of One Brown_
As the two young fellows, carrying their suitcases, emerged from the subway at Times Square into the midsummer glare and racket of Broadway and Forty-second Street, Brown suddenly halted, pressed his hand to his forehead, gazed earnestly up at the sky as though trying to recollect how to fly, then abruptly gripped Smith"s left arm just above the elbow and squeezed it, causing the latter gentleman exquisite discomfort.
"Here! Stop it!" protested Smith, wriggling with annoyance.
Brown only gazed at him and then at the sky.
"Stop it!" repeated Smith, astonished. "Why do you pinch me and then look at the sky? Is--is a monoplane attempting to alight on me? _What_ is the matter with you, anyway?"
"That peculiar consciousness," said Brown, dreamily, "is creeping over me. Don"t move--don"t speak--don"t interrupt me, Smith."
"Let go of me!" retorted Smith.
"Hush! Wait! It"s certainly creeping over me."
"What"s creeping over you?"
"You know what I mean. I am experiencing that strange feeling that all-- er--all _this_--has happened before."
"All what?--confound it!"
"All _this!_ My standing, on a hot summer day, in the infernal din of some great city; and--and I seem to recall it vividly--after a fashion-- the blazing sun, the stifling odor of the pavements; I seem to remember that very hackman over there sponging the nose of his horse--even that pushcart piled up with peaches! Smith! What is this maddeningly elusive memory that haunts me--haunts me with the peculiar idea that it has all occurred before?... Do you know what I mean?"
"I"ve just admitted to you that everybody has that sort of fidget occasionally, and there"s no reason to stand on your hindlegs about it.
Come on or we"ll miss our train."
But Beekman Brown remained stock still, his youthful and attractive features puckered in a futile effort to seize the evanescent memories that came swarming--gnatlike memories that teased and distracted.
"It"s as if the entire circ.u.mstances were strangely familiar," he said; "as though everything that you and I do and say had once before been done and said by us under precisely similar conditions--somewhere--sometime."
"We"ll miss that boat at the foot of Forty-second Street," cut in Smith impatiently. "And if we miss the boat we lose our train."
Brown gazed skyward.
"I never felt this feeling so strongly in all my life," he muttered; "it"s--it"s astonishing. Why, Smith, I _knew_ you were going to say that."
"Say what?" demanded Smith.
"That we would miss the boat and the train. Isn"t it funny?"
"Oh, very. I"ll say it again sometime if it amuses you; but, meanwhile, as we"re going to that week-end at the Carringtons we"d better get into a taxi and hustle for the foot of West Forty-second Street. Is there anything very funny in that?"
"I knew _that_, too. I knew you"d say we must take a taxi!" insisted Brown, astonished at his own "clairvoyance."
"Now, look here," retorted Smith, thoroughly vexed; "up to five minutes ago you were reasonable. What the devil"s the matter with you, Beekman Brown?"
"James Vanderdynk Smith, I don"t know. Good Heavens! I knew you were going to say that to me, and that I was going to answer that way!"
"Are you coming or are you going to talk foolish on this broiling curbstone the rest of the afternoon?" inquired Smith, fiercely.
"Jim, I tell you that everything we"ve done and said in the last five minutes we have done and said before--somewhere--perhaps on some other planet; perhaps centuries ago when you and I were Romans and wore togas----"
"Confound it! What do I care," shouted Smith, "whether we were Romans and wore togas? We are due this century at a house party on this planet. They expect us on this train. Are you coming? If not--kindly relax that crablike clutch on my elbow before partial paralysis ensues."
"Smith, wait! I tell you this is somehow becoming strangely portentous.
I"ve got the funniest sensation that something is going to happen to me."
"It will," said Smith, dangerously, "if you don"t let go my elbow."
But Beekman Brown, a prey to increasing excitement, clung to his friend.
"Wait just one moment, Jim; something remarkable is likely to occur! I--I never before felt this way--so strongly--in all my life. Something extraordinary is certainly about to happen to me."
"It has happened," said his friend, coldly; "you"ve gone dippy. Also, we"ve lost that train. Do you understand?"
"I knew we would. Isn"t that curious? I--I believe I can almost tell you what else is going to happen to us."
"_I"ll_ tell _you_," hissed Smith; "it"s an ambulance for yours and ding- dong to the funny-house! _What_ are you trying to do now?" With real misgiving, for Brown, balanced on the edge of the gutter, began waving his arms in a birdlike way as though about to launch himself into aerial flight across Forty-second Street.
"The car!" he exclaimed excitedly, "the cherry-colored cross-town car!
Where is it? Do you see it anywhere, Smith?"
"What? What do you mean? There"s no cross-town car in sight. Brown, don"t act like that! Don"t be foolish! What on earth----"
"It"s coming! There"s a car coming!" cried Brown.