Round the Block: An American NovelBouton, John Bell
General
Round the Block: An American Novel
Bouton, John Bell
City and town life -- Fiction; Male friendship -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
He then went on to say, that Mr. Minford had not replied to his
"good-night." That he repeated the salutation, and extended his hand as
a token of unbroken friendship. That Mr. Minford refused to take it, and
said that he had one last favor to ask of him (Marcus), and that was,
never to cross his threshold again. That he (Marcus) responded, "I
forgive you, sir. When, on reflection, you think that you have done me
injustice--as you will, at last--send for me, and I will still be your
friend." That he received no answer to this, save a shake of the head,
and immediately went down stairs into the street. He was feverish, and
his brain was in a whirl. Hardly knowing what he did, he walked the
streets hither and thither. He could not tell what streets he traversed,
but he kept up the exercise till he was tired. Then he became calmer,
returned home, entered the house with a latch key, and went to bed
without waking any of the inmates. On going to bed, he observed that his
watch marked one o'clock.
An intelligent juror. "You must have passed a large number of people in
the streets between eleven and one o'clock. Did you see no one whom
you knew?"
"No one; but at a corner some distance from here,--I could not say what
corner,--I noticed a policeman sitting on a barrel in front of a
grocery, smoking. He was a short, fat man, and his legs hardly reached
to the pavement. I remember him the more particularly, because I stopped
and lighted a cigar at his pipe. Just at that moment, the City Hall bell
commenced striking a fire alarm."
"What was the district?" asked the juror who was assistant foreman of
the Bully Boy Hose.
"The Seventh. I counted the strokes. I walked on rapidly, and soon came
up with another policeman, who was leaning against a grocery store. I
said to him, 'A cold night, Mr. Policeman,' and I think he would
remember that circumstance, if he could be found. Just after I had
passed him, the alarm bells struck the last round. Three or four rounds
had been struck."
The assistant foreman of the Bully Boy Hose, having referred to a
memorandum book which he drew from a breast pocket, here exclaimed:
"The alarm was at twenty-five minutes of twelve. Nothing but a chimney
in Whitehall street. We run into Twenty's fellers, comin' back, and had
a nice little row. Ever belong to the department, sir?"
Marcus answered "No;" and the pyrophilist looked compassionately upon
him, as upon one who had never known true happiness.
"If you never run with the mersheen," observed the coroner, "you do'
'no' wot life is. As for me, sir, it's my boast and pride that I have
been a member of the New York Fire Department for more'n twenty years.
It wos the backin' of the boys that made me a coroner; and, thank God!
I'm never ashamed to tell 'em so."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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