She laughed. She looked very attractive when she laughed. She had
a small, piquant, vivacious face. Jimmy, as he looked at it, had
an odd feeling that he had seen her before--when and where he did
not know. That mass of red-gold hair seemed curiously familiar.
Somewhere in the hinterland of his mind there lurked a memory,
but he could not bring it into the open. As for the girl, if she
had ever met him before, she showed no signs of recollecting it.
Jimmy decided that, if he had seen her, it must have been in his
reporter days. She was plainly an American, and he occasionally
had the feeling that he had seen every one in America when he had
worked for the _Chronicle_.
"That's right," he said approvingly. "Always look on the bright
side."
"I only arrived in London yesterday," said the girl, "and I
haven't got used to your keeping-to-the-left rules. I don't
suppose I shall ever get back to New York alive. Perhaps, as you
have saved my life, you wouldn't mind doing me another service.
Can you tell me which is the nearest and safest way to a
restaurant called the Regent Grill?"
"It's just over there, at the corner of Regent Street. As to the
safest way, if I were you I should cross over at the top of the
street there and then work round westward. Otherwise you will have
to cross Piccadilly Circus."
"I absolutely refuse even to try to cross Piccadilly Circus.
Thank you very much. I will follow your advice. I hope I shall
get there. It doesn't seem at all likely."
She gave him a little nod, and moved away. Jimmy turned into that
drug-store at the top of the Haymarket at which so many Londoners
have found healing and comfort on the morning after, and bought
the pink drink for which his system had been craving since he
rose from bed. He wondered why, as he drained it, he should feel
ashamed and guilty.
A few minutes later he found himself, with mild surprise, going
down the steps of the Regent Grill. It was the last place he had
had in his mind when he had left the steamship company's offices
in quest of lunch. He had intended to seek out some quiet,
restful nook where he could be alone with his thoughts. If
anybody had told him then that five minutes later he would be
placing himself of his own free will within the range of a
restaurant orchestra playing "My Little Grey Home in the
West"--and the orchestra at the Regent played little else--he
would not have believed him.
Restaurants in all large cities have their ups and downs. At this
time the Regent Grill was enjoying one of those bursts of
popularity for which restaurateurs pray to whatever strange gods
they worship. The more prosperous section of London's Bohemia
flocked to it daily. When Jimmy had deposited his hat with the
robber-band who had their cave just inside the main entrance and
had entered the grill-room, he found it congested. There did not
appear to be a single unoccupied table.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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