Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/124

. It was a canyon of silence along which the only sound was the periodic clatter of non-skid chains and the throb of an occasional motor-engine. New York stood like a city suddenly depopulated by some vast cataclysm.

The benignant looking Southerner in the black raincoat pounded sharply on the cab-front when his driver, apparently forgetful of instructions, jolted over the Fifty-ninth Street car-tracks and swerved to the right through the Park entrance beside the Sherman Statue. "I said by way of Broadway," he peremptorily called out.

But the speeding car kept on its way, the driver apparently oblivious of the fact that he was being addressed.

His angry fare flung open the cab door, thrust one foot out on the running board, and for a second time shouted for his driver to swing about.

But still the car continued on its way.

The benignant looking Southerner thereupon reached about with one long arm and pounded on the body of that insensate driver. There was nothing for that driver to do but slow down, stare stupidly about and demand what was wrong. But the car still crept slowly northward.

"Where are you goin', anyway?" demanded the driver, making note of the fact that they had already reached the lower end of the Mall.

"You know where I am going and you know the way I told you to go," proclaimed the man in the black rain-coat.

"What t'ell's the use of circlin' the Island to get to