A woman with a comely and mundane countenance passed us, holding in
leash a wheezing, vicious, waddling, brute of a yellow pug. The dog
entangled himself with Bridger's legs and mumbled his ankles in a
snarling, peevish, sulky bite. Bridger, with a happy smile, kicked
the breath out of the brute; the woman showered us with a quick rain
of well-conceived adjectives that left us in no doubt as to our place
in her opinion, and we passed on. Ten yards farther an old woman
with disordered white hair and her bankbook tucked well hidden
beneath her tattered shawl begged. Bridger stopped and disinterred
for her a quarter from his holiday waistcoat.
On the next corner a quarter of a ton of well-clothed man with a
rice-powdered, fat, white jowl, stood holding the chain of a
devil-born bulldog whose forelegs were strangers by the length of a
dachshund. A little woman in a last-season's hat confronted him and
wept, which was plainly all she could do, while he cursed her in low
sweet, practised tones.
Bridger smiled again--strictly to himself--and this time he took out
a little memorandum book and made a note of it. This he had no right
to do without due explanation, and I said so.
"It's a new theory," said Bridger, "that I picked up down in Ratona.
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