Page:The Mating of the Blades.djvu/81

 steel-and-concrete limbs with the dull rubbing of tackle and rope and crate, the symphony of more tongues than Babel ever knew of. Trucks and buses rumbled past. Trolley cars shot in all directions, clanking and shrieking. Trumpeting automobiles whirred by with gleaming brasses. An odor rose from the pavement as of sweat and blood and singed shoe leather—the odor of hectic, neurotic, ever hustling Europe—

And, over to the southeast, were the Docks—the wash and heave of the outer sea—India—Asia …

Hector hailed the first taxicab.

“To the Peninsular & Oriental Steamship office,” he directed.

“A bit early, guv'nor, ain't you? Them city chaps don't open shop until they 'ad their nine o'clock nip of ”

“That's all right.” A wave of glorious impatience was surging through Hector's soul. “I shall wait outside the steamship office. At least I'll imagine that I can smell India there.”

“Right-oh, guv'nor,” said the impassive driver; then, to himself: “Bloomin' rum go, I calls it. Smell—India! What the …”

And “bloomin' rum go” were the words which Sergeant Horatio Pinker of the metropolitan police was just then whispering into his martial black mustache as, passing through Coal Yard Street, he saw a light in Ali Yusuf Khan's shop, found the door blinds drawn up, and looked in, as the city regulations and his private curiosity prescribed.