“C. Q.”; or, In the Wireless House
“Oh, you have, have you?” remarked Binks suspiciously. “Wot ’s her name?”
“None of your blooming business!” retorted Micky, turning the color of a tomato. Then he escaped down the gang-plank and parrying the questions of the guardian at the gate hurried across to Ninth Avenue. Panting, he stumbled up the two long flights of metallic steps and struggled through the turn-style operated upon the elevated platform by an unshaven negro in a cinnamon-colored uniform.
With his eye staring vacantly at the seat in front of him he was whirled northward on a level with the second stories of sweat-shops and tenements, out of the windows of which hung in unconscious fashion slatternly women in loose calico garments. But he saw them not. The train swung grinding around a long pair of curves, throwing him first this way and then that, a couple of Russian Poles reeking of garlic and gurgling volubly at each other jostled him, a fat woman in a white shirt waist with blue polka dots took the seat beside him and smothered him behind her enormous bulk, the passengers came and went, got up ?nd sat down, lurched forward and back, gates slammed, the284
