“Tough luck,” said Thomas.  “A man alone can pull through all right.  But I hate to see the women and kids get the worst of it.”

Just then there hummed up Fifth Avenue a motor car so splendid, so red, so smoothly running, so craftily demolishing the speed regulations that it drew the attention even of the listless Bed Liners.  Suspended and pinioned on its left side was an extra tire.

When opposite the unfortunate company the fastenings of this tire became loosed.  It fell to the asphalt, bounded and rolled rapidly in the wake of the flying car.

Thomas McQuade, scenting an opportunity, darted from his place among the Preacher’s goats.  In thirty seconds he had caught the rolling tire, swung it over his shoulder, and was trotting smartly after the car.  On both sides of the avenue people were shouting, whistling, and waving canes at the red car, pointing to the enterprising Thomas coming up with the lost tire.

One dollar, Thomas had estimated, was the smallest guerdon that so grand an automobilist could offer for the service he had rendered, and save his pride.

Two blocks away the car had stopped.  There was a little, brown, muffled chauffeur driving, and an imposing gentleman wearing a magnificent sealskin coat and a silk hat on a rear seat.

Thomas proffered the captured tire with his best ex-coachman manner and a look in the brighter of his reddened eyes that was meant to be suggestive to the extent of a silver coin or two and receptive up to higher denominations.

But the look was not so construed.  The sealskinned gentleman received the tire, placed it inside the car, gazed intently at the ex-coachman, and muttered to himself inscrutable words.

“Strange—­strange!” said he.  “Once or twice even I, myself, have fancied that the Chaldean Chiroscope has availed.  Could it be possible?”

Then he addressed less mysterious words to the waiting and hopeful Thomas.

“Sir, I thank you for your kind rescue of my tire.  And I would ask you, if I may, a question.  Do you know the family of Van Smuythes living in Washington Square North?”

“Oughtn’t I to?” replied Thomas.  “I lived there.  Wish I did yet.”

The sealskinned gentleman opened a door of the car.

“Step in please,” he said.  “You have been expected.”

Thomas McQuade obeyed with surprise but without hesitation.  A seat in a motor car seemed better than standing room in the Bed Line.  But after the lap-robe had been tucked about him and the auto had sped on its course, the peculiarity of the invitation lingered in his mind.

“Maybe the guy hasn’t got any change,” was his diagnosis.  “Lots of these swell rounders don’t lug about any ready money.  Guess he’ll dump me out when he gets to some joint where he can get cash on his mug.  Anyhow, it’s a cinch that I’ve got that open-air bed convention beat to a finish.”

Submerged in his greatcoat, the mysterious automobilist seemed, himself, to marvel at the surprises of life.  “Wonderful! amazing! strange!” he repeated to himself constantly.