His face showed a piteous, weary distress, his thin
hair went twenty ways, he seemed scarcely to know where he was or how to
take his steps, and presently was saying to a strange lady crowded against
him, as though it was with her he had been talking all along:
"Undt vhy shall we haf t'at owfool troubple? No-o, t'at vould kill me! I
am not a cat to keep me alvays clean--no more as a hogk to keep me always
not clean. No, I keep me--owdside--inside--always so clean as it comes
eassy, undt I leave me so dirty as it comes eassy."
XIII
I took his arm into mine--his hand was hot--and drew him on alone. "Undt
t'ose vomens," he persisted in the vestibule, "t'ey are more troubple yet
as t'eir veight in goldt! I vish, mine Gott! t'ere be no more any vomens
ut all, undt we haf t'e shiltern by mutchinery."
On the outer steps I sprang with others to save a young girl, who had
stumbled, from pitching headlong to the sidewalk. Once on her feet again,
after a limp or two she walked away uninjured; but when I looked around
for my real charge he was not in sight. I hurried to Fontenette and his
wife a few steps away, but he was not with them. The three of us turned
back and came upon the rest of our group, but neither had they seen him.
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