“Wor-r-r-r-r!  Wor-r-r-r-r-r!” snarled the horn of the car; and I could understand the meaning of this also.  It said:  “I am the car of Abey Tszchniczklefritszch, king of the movies, future king of the world.  Get the hell out o’ my way!” So we sped through the crowded streets, and pedestrians scattered like autumn leaves before a storm.  “My Gawd, but I’m hungry!” said T-S.  “I ain’t had nuttin’ to eat since lunch-time.  How goes it, Maw?  Feelin’ better?  Vell, you be all right ven you git your grub.”

So we came to Prince’s, and drew up before the porte-cochere, and found ourselves confronting an adventure.  There was a crowd before the place, a surging throng half-way down the block, with a whole line of policemen to hold them back.  Over the heads of the crowd were transparencies, frame boxes with canvas on, and lights inside, and words painted on them.  “Hello!” cried T-S.  “Vot’s dis?”

Suddenly I recalled what I had read in the morning’s paper.  The workers of the famous lobster palace had gone on strike, and trouble was feared.  I told T-S, and he exclaimed:  “Oh, hell!  Ain’t we got troubles enough vit strikers in de studios, vitout dey come spoilin’ our dinner?”

The footman had jumped from his seat, and had the door open, and the great man began to alight.  At that moment the mob set up a howl.  “For shame!  For shame!  Unfair!  Don’t go in there!  They starve their workers!  They’re taking the bread out of our mouths!  Scabs!  Scabs!”

I got out second, and saw a spectacle of haggard faces, shouting menaces and pleadings; I saw hands waved wildly, one or two fists clenched; I saw the police, shoving against the mass, poking with their sticks, none too gently.  A poor devil in a waiter’s costume stretched out his arms to me, yelling in a foreign dialect:  “You take de food from my babies!” The next moment the club of a policeman came down on his head, crack.  I heard Mary scream behind me, and I turned, just in the nick of time.  Carpenter was leaping toward the policeman, crying, “Stop!”

There was no chance to parley in this emergency.  I grabbed Carpenter in a foot-ball tackle.  I got one arm pinned to his side, and Mary, good old scout, got the other as quickly.  She is a bit of an athlete—­has to keep in training for those hoochie-coochies and things she does, when she wins the love of emperors and sultans and such-like world-conquerors.  Also, when we got hold of Carpenter, we discovered that he wasn’t much but skin and bones anyhow.  We fairly lifted him up and rushed him into the restaurant; and after the first moment he stopped resisting, and let us lead him between the aisles of diners, on the heels of the toddling T-S.  There was a table reserved, in an alcove, and we brought him to it, and then waited to see what we had done.

XIV

Carpenter turned to me-and those sad but everchangjng eyes were flashing.  “You have taken a great liberty!”