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Chapter 37

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6 views

Chapter 37

Uploaded by

engrjonathanokechukwu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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36

O HENRY 100 SELECTED STORIES

Disconsolate, Soapy ceased his unavailing racket. Would never a policeman


lay hands on him? In his fancy the Island seemed an unattainable Arcadia.
He buttoned his thin coat against the chilling wind.

In a cigar store he saw a well-dressed man lighting a cigar at a swinging


light. His silk umbrella he had set by the door on entering. Soapy stepped
inside, secured the umbrella and sauntered off with it slowly. The man at the
cigar light followed hastily.

'My umbrella,' he said sternly.

'Oh, is it?' sneered Soapy, adding insult to petit larceny. 'Well, why don't you
call a policeman? I took it. Your umbrella! Why don't you call a cop? There
stands one at the corner.'

The umbrella owner slowed his steps. Soapy did likewise, with a
presentiment that luck would again run against him. The policeman looked at
the two curiously.

'Of course,' said the umbrella man- 'that is - well, you know how these
mistakes occur - I - if it's your umbrella I hope you'll excuse me - I picked it
up this morning in a restaurant - If you recognize it as yours, why- I hope
you'll --'

'Of course it's mine,' said Soapy viciously.

The ex-umbrella man retreated. The policeman hurried to assist a tall blonde
in an opera cloak across the street in front of a street car that was
approaching two blocks away.

Soapy walked eastward through a street damaged by improvements. He


hurled the umbrella wrathfully into an excavation. He muttered against the
men who wear helmets and carry clubs. Because he wanted to fall into their
clutches, they seemed to regard him as a king who could do no wrong.

At length Soapy reached one of the avenues to the east where the glitter and
turmoil was but faint. He set his face down this toward Madison Square, for
the homing instinct survives even when the home is a park bench.

But on an unusually quiet corner Soapy came to a standstill. Here was an old
church, quaint and rambling and gabled. Through one violet-stained window
a soft light glowed, where, no doubt, the organist loitered over the keys,
making sure of his mastery of the coming Sabbath anthem. For there drifted
out to Soapy's ears sweet music that caught and held him transfixed against
the convolutions of the iron fence.

The moon was above, lustrous and serene; vehicles and pedestrians were
few; sparrows twittered sleepily in the eaves - for a little while the scene
might have been a country churchyard. And

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