"I tell you that something most astonishing is going to occur--in a
cherry-colored tram car.... And somehow there'll be some reason for me to
get into it."
"Into what?"
"Into that cherry-colored car, because--because--there'll be a wicker
basket in it--somebody holding a wicker basket--and there'll be--there'll
be--a--a--white summer gown--and a big white hat----"
Smith stared at his friend in grief and amazement. Brown stood balancing
himself on the gutter's edge, pale, rapt, uttering incoherent prophecy
concerning the advent of a car not yet visible anywhere in the immediate
metropolitan vista.
"Old man," began Smith with emotion, "I think you had better come very
quietly somewhere with me. I--I want to show you something pretty and
nice."
"Hark!" exclaimed Brown.
"Sure, I'll hark for you," said Smith, soothingly, "or I'll bark for you
if you like, or anything if you'll just come quietly."
"The cherry-colored car!" cried Brown, laboring under tremendous emotion.
"Look, Smithy! That is the car!"
"Sure, it is! I see it, old man. They run 'em every five minutes. What
the devil is there to astonish anybody about a cross-town cruiser with a
red water line?"
"Look!" insisted Brown, now almost beside himself. "The wicker basket!
The summer gown! Exactly as I foretold it! The big straw hat!--the--the
_girl!_"
And shoving Smith violently away he galloped after the cherry-colored
car, caught it, swung himself aboard, and sank triumphant and breathless
into the transverse seat behind that occupied by a wicker basket, a filmy
summer frock, a big, white straw hat, and--a girl--the most amazingly
pretty girl he had ever laid eyes on.
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