A Damsel in Distress

In the Middle Ages, for example, this girl would have been a

Damsel; and in that happy time practically everybody whose

technical rating was that of Damsel was in distress and only too

willing to waive the formalities in return for services rendered by

the casual passer-by. But the twentieth century is a prosaic age,

when girls are merely girls and have no troubles at all. Were he

to stop this girl in brown and assure her that his aid and comfort

were at her disposal, she would undoubtedly call that large

policeman from across the way, and the romance would begin and end

within the space of thirty seconds, or, if the policeman were a

quick mover, rather less.

Better to dismiss dreams and return to the practical side of life

by buying the evening papers from the shabby individual beside him,

who had just thrust an early edition in his face. After all notices

are notices, even when the heart is aching. George felt in his

pocket for the necessary money, found emptiness, and remembered

that he had left all his ready funds at his hotel. It was just one

of the things he might have expected on a day like this.

The man with the papers had the air of one whose business is

conducted on purely cash principles. There was only one thing to be

done, return to the hotel, retrieve his money, and try to forget

the weight of the world and its cares in lunch. And from the hotel

he could despatch the two or three cables which he wanted to send

to New York.

The girl in brown was quite close now, and George was enabled to

get a clearer glimpse of her. She more than fulfilled the promise

she had given at a distance. Had she been constructed to his own

specifications, she would not have been more acceptable in George's

sight. And now she was going out of his life for ever. With an

overwhelming sense of pathos, for there is no pathos more bitter

than that of parting from someone we have never met, George hailed

a taxicab which crawled at the side of the road; and, with all the

refrains of all the sentimental song hits he had ever composed

ringing in his ears, he got in and passed away.

"A rotten world," he mused, as the cab, after proceeding a couple

of yards, came to a standstill in a block of the traffic. "A dull,

flat bore of a world, in which nothing happens or ever will happen.

Even when you take a cab it just sticks and doesn't move."