They're eating it up, my dear fellow. Up to this
instant they've been sitting with their mouths wide open while I
hurled it, word after word, into their very vitals. "Whereupon he
resumed the sonorous monologue, glowering balefully upon his
transfixed hearers.
Barnes, leaning against the door-jamb, listened with an amused smile
on his lips. His gaze swept the rapt faces of the dozen or more
customers seated at the tables, and he found himself wondering if one
of these men was the father of the little girl whose mother had
described Hart's Tavern as a "shindy." Was it only yesterday that he
had spoken with the barefoot child? An age seemed to have passed since
that brief encounter.
Rushcroft ended Hamlet's speech in fine style, and almost instantly a
mild voice from the crowd asked if he knew "Casey at the Bat." Not in
the least distressed by this woeful commentary, Mr. Rushcroft
cheerfully, obligingly tackled the tragic fizzle of the immortal
Casey.
A small, dark man who sat alone at a table in the corner, caught
Barnes's eye and smiled almost mournfully. He was undoubtedly a
stranger; his action was meant to convey to Barnes the information
that he too was from a distant and sophisticated community, and that a
bond of sympathy existed between them.
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