Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/267

 "Look," she said, pointing down. "There he is now."

Winnery crossed over to the window. In one corner of the market by the fountain of dolphins and serpents there was a crowd of cooks and chambermaids and cab drivers. On the edge stood the three English ladies with the Baedekers, umbrellas and cameras. One had placed her hand behind her ear in order to hear more distinctly. They surrounded a fat short figure clad in a brightly checked suit of the kind affected in London by bookmakers. In one hand the figure held an umbrella. The other hand was being used in emphatic but ineffective gestures. The crowd stood staring up at him, amused and astonished, but aware that it was being treated to an entertainment which cost nothing. The speaker's voice was weak and shrill so that it did not carry above the tumult of excited bargaining that was in progress on all sides. After a time the cooks began to drift away one by one to buy their leeks and spinach and potatoes. It was Father Baldessare, turned to plain Fulco Baldessare, leader of the new reformation.

Winnery, watching the spectacle, had a swift fleeting vision of humanity struggling to extricate itself from some colossal muddle. Then he returned to his breakfast, which he ate with a hearty appetite.

From the moment of Miss Fosdick's hysterical flight into the great world life began to annoy Mrs. Weatherby. For twenty years she had managed to