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They left the place and crossed the street
The young man in the middle. Aaron Rodd was speechless. His eyes seemed fascinated by the deficiencies of their new friend’s toilet, a fact of which he appeared sublimely unconscious. Harvey Grimm, however, proceeded to make a delicate allusion to the matter.
“Some little accident, I gather,” he remarked, “has happened — forgive my noticing it — to your right shoe.”
The poet glanced carelessly downwards.
“It occurred this morning,” he sighed. “To tell you the truth, I had scarcely noticed it. There was a green streak in the sunrise. I hastened — — “
Harvey Grimm had paused in front of a boot shop.
“This place,” he said firmly, “will do as well as another.”
“Why not?” the young man agreed, entering promptly, seating himself upon the nearest vacant chair, and holding out his foot. “Something light,” he begged. “You will observe that my foot is long and narrow.”
The shopman withdrew the tattered remnants of shoes and stared in amazement at his prospective customer’s bare feet. The latter held out his hand for a cigarette and tapped it against the side of Harvey Grimm’s case.
“It appears to me,” he continued, gazing at his mud-stained feet, “that I came out without socks. The sunrise again…
