Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/62

 Where do you live? They were moving in the general direction of Chatham Square.

Uptown. East Twenty-seventh Street. I wanted to get out of the crowd. It's easier walking this way.

You don't intend to walk home! Paul protested.

Why not? Lalwaysdo. It hardens the muscles and sends the blood spinning through your veins. . . but if you want to ride. ..

I've walked so much today already, Paul explained.

You can't walk too much, O'Grady rejoined sternly, but he paused to hail a passing taxi, in the grand manner, Paul was interested to observe, of a Venetian gallant requisitioning a gondolier in a drawing by Longhi.

Once installed, Paul sighed with relief, offered Gunnar a cigarette which the fellow gently rejected, and lighted one for himself. This, he reflected, was the perfect ending of a chaotic, maudlin day. He felt very tired.

We didn't finish our conversation, he put forward as an excuse for opening another.

Nobody ever did finish a conversation, Gunnar replied. His high spirits seemed tralatitiously to lift the roof off the moving vehicle. It's impossible to do that. There's always so much more to say. Hamlet would be talking yet if Shakespeare hadn't killed him. Conversations are only concluded arbitrarily. The novelist brings a conver-