Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/211

 tion, suggested that she go and listen to the band concert, and as she always felt restless away from crowds, she took his advice. He would meet her by the fifth light out from the shore on the pier.

It was a soft fine evening and all Bessie's smouldering hunger for life was fanned into a flame. Indeed her emotions had so thoroughly gotten the better of her that she began to wish Mr. Blundon wasn't so sickly and that he wasn't such a swell that she was afraid of him. She began to feel deep yearnings for the companionship of the Pot and Pie. She even wished that Mr. Blundon might miraculously turn out to be 'Arry or Alf. Lost in this strange mood of depression she wandered along the pier to the accompaniment of Pomp and Circumstance. She reached the fifth light and halted, lost in a slough of homesickness. And then someone pinched her and her spirits skyrocketed once more.

Turning, she planned to upbraid her insulter, since that was the conventional thing to do. "How dared he do such a thing to a lady?" (Indeed she had been acquiring airs lately through contact with Mr. Blundon's elegance.) But when she turned there was no possible suspect in sight but a kindly looking old gentleman in black who wore a black Homburg hat and carried a black umbrella. He looked a little, she thought, like a parson. Thinking that the pinch must have been administered by some mischievous person who vanished in the crowd, she turned back to her reverie. Being pinched was not a new experience for Bessie. Her plumpness made her a tempting subject and she had developed a technique for dealing with the situation. Barely had