Either way, it was difficult to know what to say. He
wondered what Cord had said, and smiled to think that here was one
object for which he and Cord were co-operating--only Cord would never
believe it. That was one trouble with capitalists--they always thought
themselves so damned desirable. And Ben did not stop to inquire how it
was that capitalists had gained this impression.
On the pier he looked about for David, but there was no David. Of
course the boy had overslept, or hadn't received his telegram--Ben
said this to himself, but somehow the vision of David comfortably
asleep in a luxurious bed in the Cords's house irritated him.
His meditations were broken in upon by a negro boy with an open
hack, who volunteered to "take him up for fifty cents." It sounded
reasonable. Ben got in and they moved slowly down the narrow pier, the
horses' hoofs clumping lazily on the wooden pavement. Turning past the
alley of Thames Street, still alight at three o'clock in the morning,
Ben stopped at the suggestion of his driver and left his bag at
a hotel, and then they went on up the hill, past the tower of the
Skeleton in Armor, past old houses with tall, pillared porticoes,
reminiscent of the days when the South patronized Newport, and turned
into Bellevue Avenue--past shops with names familiar to Fifth Avenue,
past a villa with bright-eyed owls on the gateposts, past many large,
silent houses and walled gardens.
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