It was one of her busy days, the sidewalk being blocked up with twenty or more trunks, parcels, cribs, and baby-carriages on their way, by the aid of Mike, the big white horse, and John, to the Ferry for shipment to Lakewood.  Kitty was in charge of the quarter-deck, her head bare, her sleeves rolled above her elbows, showing her plump, ruddy arms, her cheeks and eyes aglow with the crisp air of the morning.  October had set in, and one of those lung-filling, bracing days—­the sky swept by dancing clouds, dragging their skirts in their flight—­was making glad the great city.

Kitty loved its snap and tang.  She loved, too, the excitement aroused by her duties, and was never so happy as when there were but so many minutes to catch a train—­a fact she never ceased to impress upon everybody about her, she knowing all the time that she would so manage the loading as to have five minutes to spare.

“In with those hand-bags, Mike—­in the front, where that Saratoga trunk won’t smash ’em.  Now that crib —­no—­not loose!  Get that strap around it; do ye want to have to pick it up before ye get half-way to the tunnel?  Hurry up, John, dear!  Hold on—­give me the other handle of that—­look at it now, big as a chicken-coop!  Them Fifth Avenue ladies will be livin’ in these things if they keep on.”

These orders and remarks, fired in rapid succession, were interrupted to her great annoyance by the driver of the hansom cab, who, impatient at the delay, had touched his horse lightly with the whip, bringing the big wheels to a stop in front of the huge trunk which Kitty was anathematizing.

“Go on wid ye!  Drive on, I tell ye !” she cried, opening fire on the driver.

“Gentleman wants to—­”

“Well, I don’t care what the gentleman wants.  This stuff’s got to go aboard that wagon.”

Here the passenger’s head was thrust forward.

“Can you—­”

“Yes, of course I can, and glad to, no matter what it is—­but not this minute.  Don’t ye see what I’m up against?”

The hansom was backed its full length, the passenger watching Kitty’s movements with evident amusement.

Two strong hands, one Kitty’s and the other John’s —­mostly John’s—­lifted the chicken-coop of a trunk bodily, rested it for an instant on the forward wheel, and with another “all together” jerk sent it rolling into the wagon.  This completed the loading.

The passenger craned his head again.

“I am staying in Gramercy Park, and want—­”

Kitty, who had been stretching her neck to its full length to catch his words, straightened up.  “Ye’ll have to get out.  I’m no long-distance telephone, and the racket of them horse-cars is enough to set a body crazy.”

The passenger laughed, stretched out a leg, gathered the other beside it, and stepped to the sidewalk.  “You seem to understand your business, my good woman,” he began, unbuttoning his overcoat to get at the inside pocket of his cutaway.