At a quarter of five Dan made as elaborate a toilet as the washroom permitted. He consumed both time and soap on the fractious forelock, and spent precious moments trying to induce a limp string tie to assume the same correct set that distinguished Mac Clarke's four-in-hand.
Once on his way, with Growler at his heels, he gave no more thought to his looks. He walked very straight, his lips twitching now and then into a smile, and his gaze soaring over the heads of the ordinary people whom he passed. For twenty-one years the book of life had proved grim reading, but to-day he had come to that magic page whereon is written in words grown dim to the eyes of age and experience, but perennially shining to the eyes of youth: "And then they were married and lived happily ever after."
"Take care there! Look where you are going!" exclaimed an indignant pedestrian as he turned the corner into Cemetery Street.
"Why, hello, Bean!" he said in surprise, bringing his gaze down to a stout man on crutches. "Glad to see you out again!"
"I ain't out," said the ex-foreman. "I'm all in. I've got rheumatism in every corner of me. This is what your old bottle factory did for me."
"Tough luck," said Dan sympathetically, with what attention he could spare from a certain doorway half up the square. "First time you've been out?"
"No; I've been to the park once or twice. Last night I went to a show." He was about to limp on when he paused. "By the way, Lewis, I saw an old friend of yours there. You remember that Molloy girl you used to run with up at the factory?"
Dan's mouth closed sharply. Bean's attitude toward the factory girls was an old grievance with him and had caused words between them on more than one occasion.
"Well, I'll be hanged," went on Bean, undaunted, "if she ain't doing a turn up at the Gaiety! She's a little corker all right, had the whole house going."
"You got another guess coming your way," said Dan, coldly, "the young lady you're talking about's not on the stage. She's working up here in Cemetery Street. I happen to be waiting for her now."
"Well, the drinks are on me. That girl at the Gaiety is a dead ringer to her. Same classy way of handling herself, same--" Something in Dan's eyes made him stop. "I got to be going," he said. "So long."