In the remaining twenty five and one half seconds
Willie walked what seemed to him a mile from his seat
to the cashier's desk and at the last instant bumped into
a waitress with a trayful of dishes. Clutched tightly in
Willie's hand was thirty five cents and his check with a
like amount written upon it. Amid the crash of crockery
which followed the collision Willie slammed check and
money upon the cashier's desk and fled. Nor did he
pause until in the reassuring seclusion of a dark side-
street. There Willie sank upon the curb alternately cold
with fear and hot with shame, weak and panting, and
into his heart entered the iron of class hatred, searing
it to the core.
Fortunately for youth it recuperates rapidly from mor-
tal blows, and so it was that another half hour found
Willie wandering up and down Broadway but at the
far end of the street from The Elite Restaurant. A mo-
tion picture theater arrested his attention; and pres-
ently, parting with one of his two remaining dimes, he
entered. The feature of the bill was a detective melo-
drama. Nothing in the world could have better suited
Willie's psychic needs. It recalled his earlier feats of
the day, in which he took pardonable pride, and raised
him once again to a self-confidence he had not felt since
be entered the ever to be hated Elite Restaurant.
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