"Her eyes just _glittered_ at him. She's a handsome little cat, but I'll
bet she can scratch. 'Coming from _you_,' she says, 'that advice is
_thrilling_.' Her engine was still running. She slammed into gear, stepped
on the gas, and _shot_ over to Randolph Street.
"Potter looked after her and chuckled. 'Promising kid,' he said. 'You
chase along, Tom. They want me inside.' So here I am. Guess he can take
care of himself."
"Here he comes," said La Mothe. "Didn't get locked up, anyhow."
A tall young man who did not need padding in the shoulders of his coat was
making his way between the tables. He wore a plaid cap jauntily on his
yellow hair. He was not handsome, but at first glance one was apt to call
him handsome--if he were in good humor. You liked his face, except at
times when he was alone, or thoughtful. Then it distressed you, for you
could not make out the meaning of its expression. Then his blue eyes,
which were twinkling now, looked dark and brooding. He had a way of
looking dissatisfied--and something worse, more disquieting--something not
to be defined. Ordinarily his face was such as to draw men to him, even
older men who quite disliked him and used his mode of life as a text for
dissertations on what the young man of to-day was coming to.
One thing might be said with safety--he possessed personality. When he was
one of a group he dominated it. He was not a boy to leave out of the
reckoning.... When one of his "fits," as his friends called them, was dark
upon him, even those who knew him best and regarded themselves as closest
to him were a bit uneasy in his company. The most hardy and reckless of
them was moved at such times to go away from there, for Potter Waite
usually set out on some mad enterprise when that mood was on him. He would
set a pace few cared to follow.
"You never know what he's thinking about," Kraemer said, frequently. It
was true. But you did not know that he _was_ thinking, and that he could
think. Also he never followed, he _led_. For him consequences did not
exist. If he set out to do a thing, he did it, and let consequences take
care of themselves. And, as the boys complained, he went his reprehensible
way with a brass band. The idea of concealing his escapades seemed not to
occur to him.
"What'll you have?" called Randall, whose waiter had come to him.
"A stein, a quart of Scotch, and a bottle of soda," said Potter.
"What's that, sir?" said the waiter.
"Deliver it as ordered," said Potter, with a boyish smile that got him
quicker and better service than other men's tips.
The waiter obeyed and the boys watched with interest. Potter poured a
generous half-pint into the stein upon the ice, and filled the stone mug
with soda.
"I'm goin' to _git_," said Jack Eldredge. "Somethin's goin' to bust loose
around here."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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