Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/33

 "Well, think it owre, Miss Sanderson."

The young man moved back his chair to its first position in order to restore the status quo.

Harriet shook her head. And then all at once, to the deep consternation of Constable Maclean, she broke into an anguish of laughter, which good manners, try as they might, were not able to control.

IV

In the midst of this unseemly behavior on the part of Miss Sanderson, the door next the street was flung open with violence. A figure Homeric of aspect emerged from the night.

It was that of Constable Joseph Kelly, of the Metropolitan Police; an ornament of the X Division, a splendid man to look at, nearly six feet high. Broad of girth, proportioned finely, his helmet crowned him like a hero of old. His face, richly tinted by daily and nightly exposure to the remarkable climate of London, was the color of a ripe apple, and there presided in it the almost god-like good-humor of the race to which he belonged.

This emblem of superb manhood was laden heavily. There was his long overcoat, a tremendous, swelling affair; there was his furled oilskin cape; at one side of his girdle was his truncheon-case, his lamp at the other side of it; in his left hand was a modest basket which had contained his dinner, and in his right was a larger wicker arrangement which might have contained anything.

"Is that our Harriet?" said Constable Kelly, in the act of closing the door deftly with his heel. "Good evening, gal. Pleased to see you."