“It would be hideous were it not so tremendous,” Frederick shouted above the din.

The newsboys were still calling the wreck of the Roland.

“What is that?  What was that?” thought Frederick.  “I am wallowing in life.  How does that story concern me?”

A congestion of traffic compelled the grey to come to a halt.  He champed on his bit, tossed his head, sending flecks of foam flying from his mouth, and looked about as if to try the heart and reins of the young Austrian officer with his heroic, fiery eyes.  During the compulsory pause, Frederick had a chance to observe how sheafs of newspapers were being consumed by the pressing, crushing, jostling throngs.

“The cow gobbles grass, and New York gobbles newspapers,” Frederick thought.  And heaven be praised!  In The World that Schmidt bought of a boy, who at risk of his life had threaded his way to the cart, there were fresh sensations taking precedence of the Roland—­“Explosion in a Pennsylvania mine.  Three hundred miners cut off.”  “Fire in a factory in a thirteen-story skyscraper.  Four hundred working-girls perish in the flames.”

“After us the deluge,” said Frederick.  “Coal is dear, wheat is dear, oil is dear, but men are cheap as dirt.  Mr. Boabo, don’t you think our civilisation is a fever of a hundred and six degrees?  Isn’t New York a mad-house?”

But the handsome youth, after the fashion of Austrian officers, put his hand to his cap with inimitable grace, while a decided smile, a smile of happiness, played about the corners of his mouth, and his answer by no means expressed assent.

“Well, I love life.  Here one really lives.  When there is no war in Europe, then it is wearisome,” he said, speaking in English, which most clearly proved how distant his relation to the old continent was.

At the station, when they were standing on the platform beside the train, Schmidt said to Frederick, wringing his hand impetuously in his German way: 

“Now, old fellow, you must soon come to see me in Meriden.  Meriden is a small place, and you can recuperate there better than here.”

“I’m not altogether a free agent,” Frederick replied with a faint, fatalistic smile.

“Why not?”

“I have obligations.  I am tied down.”

With the indiscretion of intimacy, Schmidt asked: 

“Has it anything to do with the wooden Madonna?”

“Perhaps it is something of the sort,” Frederick replied.  “The poor little thing lost her father, her natural protector, and as I had a share in her rescue—­”

“Then there was a girl in a shift, and a rope ladder!”

“Yes and no.  I’ll tell you more about it some other time.  Now just take my word for it, there are times when all of a sudden in a most surprising way, one finds oneself saddled with complete responsibility for a fellow-creature.”

Peter Schmidt laughed.