第41章

Knowledge he had kidnapped from cyclopedias and handbooks of useful information; but as for wisdom, when she passed he was left sniffling in the road without so much as the number of her motor car.He could and would tell you the proportion of water and muscle-making properties of peas and veal, the shortest verse in the Bible, the number of pounds of shingle nails required to fasten 256 shingles laid four inches to the weather, the population of Kankakee, Ill., the theories of Spinoza, the name of Mr.H.McKay Twombly's second hall footman, the length of the Hoosac Tunnel, the best time to set a hen, the salary of the railway post-office messenger between Driftwood and Red Bank Furnace, Pa., and the number of bones in the foreleg of a cat.

The weight of learning was no handicap to Dabster.His statistics were the sprigs of parsley with which he garnished the feast of small talk that he would set before you if he conceived that to be your taste.And again he used them as breastworks in foraging at the boardinghouse.Firing at you a volley of figures concerning the weight of a lineal foot of bar-iron 5 x 2 3/4 inches, and the average annual rainfall at Fort Snelling, Minn., he would transfix with his fork the best piece of chicken on the dish while you were trying to rally sufficiently to ask him weakly why does a hen cross the road.

Thus, brightly armed, and further equipped with a measure of good looks, of a hair-oily, shopping-district-at-three-in-the-afternoon kind, it seems that Joe, of the Lilliputian emporium, had a rival worthy of his steel.

But Joe carried no steel.There wouldn't have been room in his store to draw it if he had.

One Saturday afternoon, about four o'clock, Daisy and Mr.Dabster stopped before Joe's booth.Dabster wore a silk hat, and--well, Daisy was a woman, and that hat had no chance to get back in its box until Joe had seen it.A stick of pineapple chewing gum was the ostensible object of the call.Joe supplied it through the open side of his store.He did not pale or falter at sight of the hat.

"Mr.Dabster's going to take me on top of the building to observe the view," said Daisy, after she had introduced her admirers."Inever was on a skyscraper.I guess it must be awfully nice and funny up there.""H'm!" said Joe.

"The panorama," said Mr.Dabster, "exposed to the gaze from the top of a lofty building is not only sublime, but instructive.Miss Daisy has a decided pleasure in store for her.""It's windy up there, too, as well as here," said Joe."Are you dressed warm enough, Daise?""Sure thing! I'm all lined," said Daisy, smiling slyly at his clouded brow."You look just like a mummy in a case, Joe.Ain't you just put in an invoice of a pint of peanuts or another apple? Your stock looks awful over-stocked."Daisy giggled at her favorite joke; and Joe had to smile with her.

"Your quarters are somewhat limited, Mr.--er--er," remarked Dabster, "in comparison with the size of this building.Iunderstand the area of its side to be about 340 by 100 feet.

That would make you occupy a proportionate space as if half of Beloochistan were placed upon a territory as large as the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, with the Province of Ontario and Belgium added.""Is that so, sport?" said Joe, genially."You are Weisenheimer on figures, all right.How many square pounds of baled hay do you think a jackass could eat if he stopped brayin' long enough to keep still a minute and five eighths?"A few minutes later Daisy and Mr.Dabster stepped from an elevator to the top floor of the skyscraper.Then up a short, steep stairway and out upon the roof.Dabster led her to the parapet so she could look down at the black dots moving in the street below.

"What are they?" she asked, trembling.She had never before been on a height like this before.

And then Dabster must needs play the philosopher on the tower, and conduct her soul forth to meet the immensity of space.