The Little Red Chimney | Page 3

that an automobile, in attempting to turn the corner, skidded,
grazing the front of a car which had stopped to discharge some
passengers, then crashing into a telegraph pole on the opposite side of
the street. What he did see was the frightened rush of the crowd to the
sidewalk, and in the rush, a girl, just stepping from the car, caught and
carried forward and jostled in such a manner that she lost her footing
and fell almost beneath the wheels of the Candy Wagon, and
dangerously near the hoofs of a huge draught horse, brought by its
driver to a halt in the nick of time.
The Candy Man was out and at her side in an instant, assisting her to
rise. The panic swept past them, leaving only a long-legged child in a
red tam, and a sad-faced elderly man in its wake. The Candy Man had
seen all three before. The wearer of the red tam was one of the
apartment-house children, the sad man was popularly known to the
neighbourhood as the Miser, and the girl, to whose assistance he had
sprung--well, he had seen her on two previous occasions.
As she stood in some bewilderment looking ruefully at the mud on her
gloves and skirt, the merest glance showed her to be the sort of girl any
one might have been glad to help.
"Thank you, I am not hurt--only rather shaken," she said in answer to
the Candy Man.
"Here's your bag," announced the long-legged child, fishing it out of
the soggy mass of leaves beneath the wagon. "And you need not worry
about your skirt. Take it to Bauer's just round the corner; they'll clean
it," she added.
The owner of the bag received it and the accompanying advice with an
adorable smile in which there was merriment as well as appreciation.

The Miser plucked the Candy Man by the sleeve and asked if the young
lady did not wish a cab.
She answered for herself. "Thank you, no; I am quite all right--only
muddy. But was it a bad accident? What happened?"
The Miser crossed the street where the crowd had gathered, to
investigate, and returning reported the chauffeur probably done for.
While he was gone the conductor of the street car appeared in quest of
the names and addresses of everybody within a radius of ten blocks. In
this way the Candy Man learned that her name was Bentley. She gave it
reluctantly, as persons do on such occasions, and he failed to catch her
street and number.
"I'm very sorry! I suppose there is nothing one can do?" she exclaimed,
apropos of the chauffeur, and the next the Candy Man knew she was
walking away in the mist hand in hand with the long-legged child.
"An unusually charming face," the Miser remarked, raising his
umbrella.
To the sober mind "unusually charming" would seem a not unworthy
compliment, but the Candy Man, as he resumed his place in the wagon,
smiled scornfully at what he was pleased to consider its grotesque
inadequacy. If he had anything better to offer, the Miser did not stay to
hear it, but with a courteous "good evening" disappeared in his turn in
the mist. An ambulance carried away the injured man, the crowd
dispersed; the remains of the machine were towed away to a near-by
garage. Night fell; the throng grew less, the rain gathered courage and
became a downpour. There would be little doing in the way of business
to-night.
As he made ready for early closing the Candy Man fell to thinking of
the girl whose name was Bentley. Not that the name interested him
save as a means of further identification. It was a phrase used by the
Reporter this morning that occurred to him now as peculiarly
applicable to her. The Girl of All Others! He rolled it as a sweet morsel
under his tongue, undisturbed by the reflection that such descriptive

titles are at present overworked--in dreams one has no need to be
original.
Neither did it strike him as incongruous that he should have seen her
first in the grocery kept by Mr. Simms, who catered to the needs of
such as got their own breakfasts, and whose boiled ham was becoming
famous, because it was really done. He went back to the experience,
dwelling with pleasure upon each detail of it, even his annoyance at the
grocer's daughter, who exchanged crochet patterns with the tailor's wife,
after the manner of a French exercise, and ignored him. It was early and
business had not yet begun on the Y.M.C.A. corner; still he could not
wait forever. The grocer himself, who was attending to the wants of a
lean and hungry-looking student, had just handed his rolls and smoked
sausage across