“Smith, wait!  I tell you this is somehow becoming strangely portentous.  I’ve got the funniest sensation that something is going to happen to me.”

“It will,” said Smith, dangerously, “if you don’t let go my elbow.”

But Beekman Brown, a prey to increasing excitement, clung to his friend.

“Wait just one moment, Jim; something remarkable is likely to occur!  I—­I never before felt this way—­so strongly—­in all my life.  Something extraordinary is certainly about to happen to me.”

“It has happened,” said his friend, coldly; “you’ve gone dippy.  Also, we’ve lost that train.  Do you understand?”

“I knew we would.  Isn’t that curious?  I—­I believe I can almost tell you what else is going to happen to us.”

“I’ll tell you,” hissed Smith; “it’s an ambulance for yours and ding-dong to the funny-house! What are you trying to do now?” With real misgiving, for Brown, balanced on the edge of the gutter, began waving his arms in a birdlike way as though about to launch himself into aerial flight across Forty-second Street.

“The car!” he exclaimed excitedly, “the cherry-colored cross-town car!  Where is it?  Do you see it anywhere, Smith?”

“What?  What do you mean?  There’s no cross-town car in sight.  Brown, don’t act like that!  Don’t be foolish!  What on earth——­”

“It’s coming!  There’s a car coming!” cried Brown.

“Do you think you’re a racing runabout and I’m a curve?”

Brown waved him away impatiently.

“I tell you that something most astonishing is going to occur—­in a cherry-colored tram car....  And somehow there’ll be some reason for me to get into it.”

“Into what?”

“Into that cherry-colored car, because—­because—­there’ll be a wicker basket in it—­somebody holding a wicker basket—­and there’ll be—­there’ll be—­a—­a—­white summer gown—­and a big white hat——­”

Smith stared at his friend in grief and amazement.  Brown stood balancing himself on the gutter’s edge, pale, rapt, uttering incoherent prophecy concerning the advent of a car not yet visible anywhere in the immediate metropolitan vista.

“Old man,” began Smith with emotion, “I think you had better come very quietly somewhere with me.  I—­I want to show you something pretty and nice.”

“Hark!” exclaimed Brown.

“Sure, I’ll hark for you,” said Smith, soothingly, “or I’ll bark for you if you like, or anything if you’ll just come quietly.”

“The cherry-colored car!” cried Brown, laboring under tremendous emotion.  “Look, Smithy!  That is the car!”

“Sure, it is!  I see it, old man.  They run ’em every five minutes.  What the devil is there to astonish anybody about a cross-town cruiser with a red water line?”

“Look!” insisted Brown, now almost beside himself.  “The wicker basket!  The summer gown!  Exactly as I foretold it!  The big straw hat!—­the—­the girl!”