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Page 15
"Hetty, dear," sighed Cecilia, "I'm so hungry. What difference does
it make whether he's a prince or a burglar? I don't care. Bring him
in if he's got anything to eat with him."
Hetty went back into the hall. The onion man was gone. Her heart
missed a beat, and a gray look settled over her face except on her
nose and cheek-bones. And then the tides of life flowed in again, for
she saw him leaning out of the front window at the other end of the
hall. She hurried there. He was shouting to some one below. The
noise of the street overpowered the sound of her footsteps. She
looked down over his shoulder, saw whom he was speaking to, and heard
his words. He pulled himself in from the window-sill and saw her
standing over him.
Hetty's eyes bored into him like two steel gimlets.
"Don't lie to me," she said, calmly. "What were you going to do with
that onion?"
The young man suppressed a cough and faced her resolutely. His manner
was that of one who had been bearded sufficiently.
"I was going to eat it," said he, with emphatic slowness; "just as I
told you before."
"And you have nothing else to eat at home?"
"Not a thing."
"What kind of work do you do?"
"I am not working at anything just now."
"Then why," said Hetty, with her voice set on its sharpest edge, "do
you lean out of windows and give orders to chauffeurs in green
automobiles in the street below?"
The young man flushed, and his dull eyes began to sparkle.
"Because, madam," said he, in accelerando tones, "I pay the
chauffeur's wages and I own the automobile--and also this onion--this
onion, madam."
He flourished the onion within an inch of Hetty's nose. The shop-lady
did not retreat a hair's-breadth.
"Then why do you eat onions," she said, with biting contempt, "and
nothing else?"
"I never said I did," retorted the young man, heatedly. "I said I had
nothing else to eat where I live. I am not a delicatessen store-
keeper."
"Then why," pursued Hetty, inflexibly, "were you going to eat a raw
onion?"
"My mother," said the young man, "always made me eat one for a cold.
Pardon my referring to a physical infirmity; but you may have noticed
that I have a very, very severe cold. I was going to eat the onion
and go to bed. I wonder why I am standing here and apologizing to you
for it."
"How did you catch this cold?" went on Hetty, suspiciously.
The young man seemed to have arrived at some extreme height of
feeling. There were two modes of descent open to him--a burst of rage
or a surrender to the ridiculous. He chose wisely; and the empty hall
echoed his hoarse laughter.
"You're a dandy," said he. "And I don't blame you for being careful.
I don't mind telling you. I got wet. I was on a North River ferry a
few days ago when a girl jumped overboard. Of course, I--"
Hetty extended her hand, interrupting his story.
"Give me the onion," she said.
The young man set his jaw a trifle harder.
"Give me the onion," she repeated.
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