The stranger nodded, peering down the glistening, wet way, as if she
were a skipper sighting a ship.

"My car, too! First's Lexin'ton--next Broadway--then--here's ours!"
Again that derrick-grip, and they stood in the heart of the maelstrom,
but apparently perfectly safe, unassailable.

"They won't stop," Claire wailed plaintively. "I've been waiting for
ages. The car'll go by! You see if it won't!"

It did, indeed, seem on the point of sliding past, as all the rest had
done, but of a sudden the motorman vehemently shut off his power, and
put on his brake. By some hidden, mysterious force that was in her, or
the mere commanding dimensions of her frame, Claire's companion had
brought him to a halt.

She lifted her charge gently up on to the step, pausing herself, before
she should mount the platform, to close the girl's umbrella.

"Step lively! Step lively!" the conductor urged insistently, reaching
for his signal-strap.

The retort came calmly, deliberately, but with perfect good nature. "Not
on your life, young man. I been steppin' lively all day, an' for so
long's it's goin' to take this car to get to One-hundred-an'-sixteenth
Street, my time ain't worth no more'n a settin' hen's."

The conductor grinned in spite of himself. "Well, mine _is_," he
declared, while with an authoritative finger he indicated the box into
which Claire was to drop her fare.