Sonorous and startling came the stroke of 9 from the clock tower.  The young man sighed again, turned his face for one last look at the house of his relinquished hopes—­and cried aloud profane words of holy rapture.

From the middle upper window blossomed in the dusk a waving, snowy, fluttering, wonderful, divine emblem of forgiveness and promised joy.

By came a citizen, rotund, comfortable, home-hurrying, unknowing of the delights of waving silken scarfs on the borders of dimly-lit parks.

“Will you oblige me with the time, sir?” asked the young man; and the citizen, shrewdly conjecturing his watch to be safe, dragged it out and announced: 

“Twenty-nine and a half minutes past eight, sir.”

And then, from habit, he glanced at the clock in the tower, and made further oration.

“By George! that clock’s half an hour fast!  First time in ten years I’ve known it to be off.  This watch of mine never varies a—­”

But the citizen was talking to vacancy.  He turned and saw his hearer, a fast receding black shadow, flying in the direction of a house with three lighted upper windows.

And in the morning came along two policemen on their way to the beats they owned.  The park was deserted save for one dilapidated figure that sprawled, asleep, on a bench.  They stopped and gazed upon it.

“It’s Dopy Mike,” said one.  “He hits the pipe every night.  Park bum for twenty years.  On his last legs, I guess.”

The other policeman stooped and looked at something crumpled and crisp in the hand of the sleeper.

“Gee!” he remarked.  “He’s doped out a fifty-dollar bill, anyway.  Wish I knew the brand of hop that he smokes.”

And then “Rap, rap, rap!” went the club of realism against the shoe soles of Prince Michael, of the Electorate of Valleluna.

SISTERS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE

The Rubberneck Auto was about ready to start.  The merry top-riders had been assigned to their seats by the gentlemanly conductor.  The sidewalk was blockaded with sightseers who had gathered to stare at sightseers, justifying the natural law that every creature on earth is preyed upon by some other creature.

The megaphone man raised his instrument of torture; the inside of the great automobile began to thump and throb like the heart of a coffee drinker.  The top-riders nervously clung to the seats; the old lady from Valparaiso, Indiana, shrieked to be put ashore.  But, before a wheel turns, listen to a brief preamble through the cardiaphone, which shall point out to you an object of interest on life’s sightseeing tour.

Swift and comprehensive is the recognition of white man for white man in African wilds; instant and sure is the spiritual greeting between mother and babe; unhesitatingly do master and dog commune across the slight gulf between animal and man; immeasurably quick and sapient are the brief messages between one and one’s beloved.  But all these instances set forth only slow and groping interchange of sympathy and thought beside one other instance which the Rubberneck coach shall disclose.  You shall learn (if you have not learned already) what two beings of all earth’s living inhabitants most quickly look into each other’s hearts and souls when they meet face to face.