It was barely half-past
twelve and the tide of fashionable traffic had not yet set in. Hence the
motor car made good progress, nor was it until Fiftieth Street was
reached that a block of traffic caused them to halt. An automobile had
collided with a delivery wagon, and a wordy contest was waging between
the driver of the wagon, the chauffeur, one of the occupants of the
automobile and a traffic-squad policeman.
"You don't know your business," a loud voice proclaimed, addressing the
policeman. "If you did you wouldn't be sitting up there like a dummy
already. This here driver run into _us_. We didn't run into him."
It was the male occupant of the automobile that spoke, and in vain did
his fair companion clutch at the tails of the linen duster that he wore;
he was in the full tide of eloquence and thoroughly enjoying himself.
The mounted policeman maintained his composure--the calm of a volcano
before its eruption, the ominous lull that precedes the tornado.
"And furthermore," continued the passenger, throwing out his chest,
whereon sparkled a large diamond enfolded in crimson silk--"and
furthermore, I'll see to it that them superiors of yours down below
hears of it."
The mounted policeman jumped nimbly from his horse, and as Morris rose
in the tonneau of his automobile he saw Max Tuchman being jerked bodily
to the street, while his fair companion shrieked hysterically.
Morris opened the door and sprang out.
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