Look at 'em. Look at him!'--A mongrel-looking man was
nosing past. 'Wouldn't _he_ murder you for your watch-chain, but that
he's afraid of society. He's got it _in_ him.... Look at 'em.'
Berry watched the towns-people go by, and, sensitively feeling his
uncle's antipathy, it seemed he was watching a sort of _danse macabre_ of
ugly criminals.
'Did you ever see such a God-forsaken crew creeping about! It gives you
the very horrors to look at 'em. I sit in this damned car and watch 'em
till, I can tell you, I feel like running the cab amuck among 'em, and
running myself to kingdom come--'
Berry wondered at this outburst. He knew his uncle was the black-sheep,
the youngest, the darling of his mother's family. He knew him to be at
outs with respectability, mixing with the looser, sporting type, all
betting and drinking and showing dogs and birds, and racing. As a critic
of life, however, he did not know him. But the young man felt curiously
understanding. 'He uses words like I do, he talks nearly as I talk,
except that I shouldn't say those things. But I might feel like that, in
myself, if I went a certain road.'
'I've got to go to Watmore,' he said. 'Can you take me?'
'When d'you want to go?' asked the uncle fiercely.
'Now.'
'Come on, then. What d'yer stand gassin' on th' causeway for?'
The nephew took his seat beside the driver. The cab began to quiver, then
it started forward with a whirr.
Pages:
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198