Paul reappeared, trim in leathern cap, well-fitting Norfolk jacket and shining puttees.

“Never know he only had on an undershirt,” thought Bean, struck by this swiftly devised effect of correct dressing.  He sat in the roomy rear seat beside Nap, leaning an elbow negligently on the arm-rest.  He watched Paul shrewdly in certain mysterious preparations for starting the car.  An observer would have said that one false move on Paul’s part would have been enough.

The car rolled out and turned into the wide avenue half a block away.

“Where to, Boss?” asked Paul.

“Just around,” said Bean.  “Tea and things!”

They glided swiftly on.

“Oh, just a little old last year’s car!” said Bean, frowning royally at a couple of mere foot people who turned to stare.

What would that flapper do next?

He surrendered to the movement.  Drunkenly he mused upon a wild inspiration to bring Ram-tah out and give him a ride in this big red car.  It appealed to him much.  Ram-tah would almost open his eyes at the novelty of that progress.  But he felt that this was no safe thing to do.  He would be arrested.  The whole secret might come out.

He had retained no sense of direction, but he was presently conscious of the river close at his side, and then the car, with warning blasts, curved up to a much lighted building and halted.  A large man in uniform came solicitously to help him descend and gave him a fragment of cardboard which he knew would redeem his motor.

He was seated at a table looking down upon the shining river.

“Tea and things,” he said to the waiter.

“Yes, sir; black or green, sir?”

“Bottle ginger ale!” How did he know whether he wanted black or green tea.  No time to be fussy.

He began a lordly survey of the people at neighbouring tables—­people who had doubtless walked there, or come in hired cabs, at the best.  Hired cabs had yesterday seemed impressive to him; now they were rather vulgar.  Of course, there might be circumstances—­

He froze like a pointing dog.  At a table not twenty feet distant, actually in the flesh, sat the Greatest Pitcher the World Has Ever Known.  For a moment he could only stare fixedly.  The man was simply there!  He was talking volubly to two other men, and he was also eating a mere raspberry ice!

It showed how things “worked around,” once you got started.  Hadn’t his whole life been a proof of this?  How many times had he wished he might happen upon that Pitcher just as he was now, in street clothes—­to look at him, study him!  He wished he had ordered raspberry ice instead of ginger ale, which he didn’t like.  He would order one anyway.

It was all Ram-tah.  If you knew you were a king, you needn’t ever worry again.  You sat still and let things come to you.  After all, a king was greater than a pitcher, if you came down to it—­in some ways, certainly.