And then a stall-fed cop shoved himself through the congregation of customers.  The vender, plainly used to having his seasons of trade thus abruptly curtailed, closed his satchel and slipped like a weasel through the opposite segment of the circle.  The crowd scurried aimlessly away like ants from a disturbed crumb.  The cop, suddenly becoming oblivious of the earth and its inhabitants, stood still, swelling his bulk and putting his club through an intricate drill of twirls.  I hurried after Kansas Bill Bowers, and caught him by an arm.

Without his looking at me or slowing his pace, I found a five-dollar bill crumpled neatly into my hand.

“I wouldn’t have thought, Kansas Bill,” I said, “that you’d hold an old friend that cheap.”

Then he turned his head, and the hickory-nut cracked into a wide smile.

“Give back the money,” said he, “or I’ll have the cop after you for false pretenses.  I thought you was the cop.”

“I want to talk to you, Bill,” I said.  “When did you leave Oklahoma?  Where is Reddy McGill now?  Why are you selling those impossible contraptions on the street?  How did your Big Horn gold-mine pan out?  How did you get so badly sunburned?  What will you drink?”

“A year ago,” answered Kansas Bill systematically.  “Putting up windmills in Arizona.  For pin money to buy etceteras with.  Salted.  Been down in the tropics.  Beer.”

We foregathered in a propitious place and became Elijahs, while a waiter of dark plumage played the raven to perfection.  Reminiscence needs must be had before I could steer Bill into his epic mood.

“Yes,” said he, “I mind the time Timoteo’s rope broke on that cow’s horns while the calf was chasing you.  You and that cow!  I’d never forget it.”

“The tropics,” said I, “are a broad territory.  What part of Cancer of Capricorn have you been honoring with a visit?”

“Down along China or Peru—­or maybe the Argentine Confederacy,” said Kansas Bill.  “Anyway ’twas among a great race of people, off-colored but progressive.  I was there three months.”

“No doubt you are glad to be back among the truly great race,” I surmised.  “Especially among New Yorkers, the most progressive and independent citizens of any country in the world,” I continued, with the fatuity of the provincial who has eaten the Broadway lotus.

“Do you want to start an argument?” asked Bill.

“Can there be one?” I answered.

“Has an Irishman humor, do you think?” asked he.

“I have an hour or two to spare,” said I, looking at the cafe clock.

“Not that the Americans aren’t a great commercial nation,” conceded Bill.  “But the fault laid with the people who wrote lies for fiction.”

“What was this Irishman’s name?” I asked.

“Was that last beer cold enough?” said he.

“I see there is talk of further outbreaks among the Russian peasants,” I remarked.