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No, it was rather a kind of vague regret for the life which had so definitely ended, the feeling which the Romans called desiderium and the Greeks pathos. The defection of George Pennicut was a small thing in itself, but it meant the removal of another landmark. "We had some bully good times in that studio," he said. The words were a requiem.
"It can't be Bailey back again." "Good morning, Pennicut," spoke the clear voice of Mrs. Lora Delane Porter. "I wish to see Mr. Winfield." "Yes, ma'am. He's upstairs in 'is bath!" "I will wait in the studio." "Good Lord!" cried Kirk, bounding from his seat on the rail. "For Heaven's sake, Steve, go and talk to her while I dress. I'll be down in a minute." "Sure. What's her name?" "Mrs. Porter.
On reaching Sixty-First Street she found her way blocked by a lumbering delivery wagon. She followed it slowly for a while; then, growing tired of being merely a unit in a procession, tugged at the steering-wheel, and turned to the right. George Pennicut, his anxious eyes raking the middle distance as usual, in the wrong direction had just stepped off the kerb.
Lora Delane Porter, who at the time of his call, had been busily occupied in a back room instilling into George Pennicut the gospel of the fit body. For George, now restored to health, had ceased to be a mere student of "Elementary Rules for the Preservation of the Body" and had become an active, though unwilling, practiser of its precepts. Every morning Mrs.
"From the look of your frame I should imagine that you were once a man of some physique. Your shoulders are good. Even now a rigorous course of physical training might save you. I have known more helpless cases saved by firm treatment. You have allowed yourself to deteriorate much as did a man named Pennicut who used to be employed here by Mr. Winfield. I saved him.
The slight dislocation in the smooth-working machinery of his existence, caused by the compulsory retirement of George Pennicut, had made him thoroughly uncomfortable. With discomfort had come introspection, and with introspection this uneasiness that was almost fear. A man, living alone, without money troubles to worry him, sinks inevitably into a routine. Fatted ease is good for no one.
It was ever her way to come swiftly to the matter in hand. "Mr. Kirk Winfield?" "Yes." "Have you in your employment a red-haired, congenital idiot who ambles about New York in an absent-minded way, as if he were on a desert island? The man I refer to is a short, stout Englishman, clean-shaven, dressed in black." "That sounds like George Pennicut." "I have no doubt that that is his name.
However, as the alert inhabitants of Manhattan Island, a hardy race trained from infancy to dodge taxicabs and ambulance wagons, had always removed themselves from her path with their usual agility, she had never yet had an accident. But then she had never yet met George Pennicut. And George, pawn of fate, was even now waiting round the corner to upset her record.
The phenomenon of a caller at the cell of the two hermits was so strange that he awaited Ruth's arrival with more than his customary impatience. She would be able to identify the visitor. George Pennicut, questioned on the point, had no information of any value to impart. A very pretty young lady she was, said George, with what you might call a lively manner.
This aspect of the affair had not struck Mr. Pennicut. Presented to him in these simple words, it checked the recriminatory speech which, his mind having recovered to some extent from the first shock of the meeting, he had intended to deliver. He swallowed his words, awed. He felt dazed and helpless. Mrs. Porter had that effect upon men. Some more citizens arrived.
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