Page:Arthur Stringer-The Loom of Destiny.djvu/174

The Loom of Destiny that lay in dazzling disarray in the window of the store of "Isaac Rosenberg, Pawnbroker."

The final break came when Brickie stood on the curb with Ikey and made faces at Hungry.

Hungry saw the change, but he said nothing. Strange tales went the rounds of the wharves, and it was said he was silently eating his heart out. Disconsolately he passed by bananas and onions and oranges, letting ready hands snatch the treasures from under his very nose. He would not even stop to fight over a discarded pineapple.

How it all might have turned out it is hard to say. But on the paltriest accidents of life hinges the course of destiny.

It came about simply because the driver of an express waggon took four glasses of beer, when he knew three glasses were enough. His waggon was piled high with crates on their way to the commission house. And in those crates were little wooden boxes of imported Maryland strawberries. Their fragrance was wafted up and down the wharf, and they glowed through the chinks 162