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Stephens, Robert Neilson, 1867-1906

"Tales from Bohemia"

Bridges couldn't come. Here's a note."
Then he slammed the cab door, and called out in a commanding tone:
"Drive on there! Quick!"
The cabman, who had evidently received directions in advance from the girl,
jerked his reins, and the cab moved forward, turned, and rattled away, the
horse at a brisk trot.
Yorick speedily left the scene. At the next corner he met a policeman, to
whom he said:
"There's a man lying on the sidewalk back there by the church. I don't know
whether he's drunk or not."
He was off before the officer could detain him.
Bridges spent the night in a station-house, recovering from the effects of
a fall, which the police attributed to drunkenness. Assuming that he had
received his blows from some masculine relative or admirer of the girl,
he gave a false account of the bruises when the next night he asked the
manager for a few nights of rest and enabled his understudy to obtain a
chance long coveted.
The leading juvenile manifestly thought best not to attempt a renewal of a
flirtation with a young woman who had so formidable a protector; and the
girl herself, whatever became of her, addressed him no more epistles of
adoration, or of any sort whatever.


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