A penetrating mist was veiling everything; the stone church, the
seminary buildings, the tall apartment houses, the few old residences
not yet crowded out, the drug store, the confectionery--all were softly
blurred. The asphalt became a grey lake in which all the colour and
movement of the busy street was reflected, and upon whose bosom the
Candy Wagon seemed afloat. As the Candy Man watched, gleams of light
presently began to pierce the mist, from a hundred windows, from passing
street cars and cabs, from darting machines now transformed into
strange, double-eyed demons. It was a scene of enchantment, and with
pleasure he felt himself part of it, as in his turn he lit up his wagon.

The traffic officer, whose shrill whistle sounded continually above the
clang of the trolley cars and the hoarse screams of impatient machines,
probably viewed the situation differently. Given slippery streets,
intersecting car lines, an increasing throng of vehicles and
pedestrians, with a fog growing denser each moment, and the utmost
vigilance is often helpless to avert an accident. So it was now.

The Candy Man did not actually see the occurrence, but later it
developed that an automobile, in attempting to turn the corner,
skidded, grazing the front of a car which had stopped to discharge some
passengers, then crashing into a telegraph pole on the opposite side of
the street. What he did see was the frightened rush of the crowd to the
sidewalk, and in the rush, a girl, just stepping from the car, caught
and carried forward and jostled in such a manner that she lost her
footing and fell almost beneath the wheels of the Candy Wagon, and
dangerously near the hoofs of a huge draught horse, brought by its
driver to a halt in the nick of time.