A shabby, disreputable, out-at-elbows
office coat was worn over his ultra-smart street clothes,
and he was puffing at a freakish little pipe in the shape
of a miniature automobile. He eyed me a moment from the
doorway, a fantastic, elfin little figure. I thought
that I had never seen so strange and so ugly a face as
that of this little brown Welshman with his lank, black
hair and his deep-set, uncanny black eyes. Suddenly he
trotted over to me with a quick little step. In the
doorway he had looked forty. Now a smile illumined the
many lines of his dark countenance, and in some
miraculous way he looked twenty.
"Are you the New York importation?" he, asked, his
great black eyes searching my face.
"I'm what's left of it," I replied, meekly.
"I understand you've been in for repairs. Must of met
up with somethin' on the road. They say the goin' is full
of bumps in N' York."
"Bumps!" I laughed, "it's uphill every bit of the
road, and yet you've got to go full speed to get
anywhere. But I'm running easily again, thank you."
He waved away a cloud of pipe-smoke, and knowingly
squinted through the haze. "We don't speed up much here.
And they ain't no hill climbin' t' speak of.
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