Burned Bridges

Thompson stood on the running board, panting a little, the blaze of a

quick anger bright in his blue eyes, and he became aware of two men in

the rear seat of the gray car, gazing at him in open-mouthed

astonishment. One was fat and long past forty, well fed, well dressed, a

prosperous citizen. The other was a slim youngster in the early

twenties, astonishingly like his older companion as to feature.

Thompson looked at them, and back at the cowed driver who was feeling

his neck and face with shaky fingers. Just then three things

happened--simultaneously. The traffic whistle blew. The younger man

opened his mouth and uttered, "I say--" Sophie plucked at Thompson's

arm, crying "Sit down, sit down."

Thompson was still fumbling the catch on the door when they swept over

the cross street and raced down the next block. He looked back. The gray

car was hidden somewhere in a rolling phalanx of other motors. The

traffic had split and flowed about and past it, stalled there doubtless

while the red-faced chauffeur wiped the blood out of his eyes and

wondered if a street car had struck him.

"Do you habitually reprove ill-bred persons in that vigorous manner?"

He became aware of Sophie speaking. He looked at her. So far as he could

gather from her profile she was quite unperturbed, making her way among

the traffic that is always like a troubled sea between Third and the

Ferry Building.

"No," he replied diffidently. "I daresay I'd be in jail or the hospital

most of the time if I did. Still, that was rather a rank case. I'm not

sorry I bumped him. He'll be civil to the next woman he meets."

What he did not attempt to explain to Sophie, a matter he scarcely

fathomed himself, was his precipitancy, this going off "half-cocked", as

he put it. He wasn't given to quick bursts of temper. It was as if he

had been holding himself in and the self-contained pressure had grown

acute when the insolent chauffeur presented himself as a relief valve.

He felt a little ashamed now.

Sophie swung the roadster in to the curb before the express office.

Thompson got out.

"Good-by till this evening, then," he said. "I'll be there if the police

don't get me."

"If they do," she smiled, "telephone and dad will come down and bail you

out. Good-by, Mr. Thompson."

Ten minutes or so later he emerged from the express office with a

suitcase, a canvas bag, and a roll of blankets. He had no false pride

about people seeing him with his worldly goods upon his back, so to

speak, wherefore he crossed the street and trudged half a block to a

corner where he could catch a car that would carry him out Market to his

old rooming place.