“Why, hello John!” said Frederick Trevor, a man who had an office in his building and an interest in his sister.  “Who would have thought of meeting you here?”

“Or you,” retorted John.  “But since you are here, you can help me in a little difficulty.”

“Not now, old chap,” said Frederick, “I’m in a bit of a hurry.  See you about it to-morrow.  Well, so long.  Don’t let me keep you from your friend.”

“Friend!” stormed John and then following the directions of Trevor’s eyes, he descried a blue-clad, golden-haired young lady lolling against the window, trying with a giant chiffon muff to smother a fit of hilarious laughter.  One arched and smiling eye showed above the muff and the whole figure was instinct with Bacchanalian mirth.  “Why that’s,” he began to explain, but young Trevor had vanished into the crowd.

Presently the cab with the smart youth inside drew up to the curb and Sedyard, with a new self-consciousness, put his arm around the blue figure and trundled her across the sidewalk.  The cabman threw his rug across his horse’s quarters and lumbered down to assist at the embarkation of so fair a passenger.  The smart youth held the door encouragingly open and John proceeded, with much more strength than he had expected to use, to heave the passenger aboard.

Even these preliminaries had attracted the nucleus of a crowd and the smart youth grew restive.

“Aw, say Maudie,” he urged when the lady stuck rigid catty-cornerwise across the cab with her blue feathers pressed against the roof in one corner, and her bird-cage skirt arrangement protruding beyond the door-sill.  “Aw, say Maudie, set down, why don’t you, and take your Trilbys in.  This gent is going to take you carriage riding.”

“What’s the matter with her anyway,” demanded the cabman.  “Don’t she know how to set in a carriage?”

“No, she doesn’t, she’s only a wax figure,” said John, “but I bought her and now I’m determined to take her home.  She’d better go up on the box with you.”

“What! her?” demanded the outraged Jehu.  “Say, what do you take me for anyway?  Do you suppose I ain’t got no friends just ’cause I drive a cab?  Why!  I wouldn’t drive up Broadway with them goo-goo eyes settin’ beside me, not for nothing you could offer, I wouldn’t.”

By this time the crowd had reached very respectable proportions although there was nothing to see except the end of a blue gown hanging out of the cab’s open door.  The sharp youth, the cabman and John took turns in trying to adjust the lady to her environment.  The rigidity and fragility of her arms and head made this very difficult, and presently there rolled upon the scene a policeman, large, Irish and chivalrous.  It took Patrolman McDonogh but a second, but one glance at the tableaux and one whisper from the crowd to understand that a kidnapping atrocity was in progress.

With wrath in his eye, he shouldered aside Sedyard and the cabman, grabbed the smart youth, whose turn at persuasion was then on, and threw him into the face of the crowd.