Not one who found himself in his way but hopped
swiftly aside to give him gangway.
"How conducive to high judgment, how accelerating to respect is
success," mused the passenger. "Two hours ago hardly one of them who did
not set him down for a half-crazy, or, at least, an over-sanguine
visionary--but now--they bound like stags before him, and none more
propitiatingly agile than the former satellites of our deposed bosun. A
Don Quixote"--murmured the passenger--"maybe, but a 20th century Don
Quixote--with a wallop in each hand. If the Don Quixotes generally had
his equipment, it would not be windmills alone which would suffer, and
some joy then for honest men to watch the tilting."
Jan Tingloff
THE LODGING HOUSE
Jan Tingloff, not wishing to get too far away from the dry dock, turned
up a side street near the water-front, and there, in a basement window
of a narrow four-story brick building, he saw the sign "Furnished Room
to Rent."
A second look showed Jan that the basement also afforded an entrance to
a not too well lit pool-room and that a not overclean alley ran up one
side of the building. Jan, with no prejudices against alleys or
pool-rooms, entered the pool-room to inquire. "Yeh," said the man behind
the cigar-case--"second floor--a week in advance--ring the front-door
bell--a woman will come and show you."
A woman who preceded him like a discouraged shadow showed him the room,
but it was to the man in the basement that she told Jan to pay the
week's rent when he said he would take the room.
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