He felt something knock against his shoulder, and he looked up to have
his hat struck from his head by a horse's nose. He saw the horse put his
foot on the hat, and he reflected, "Now it will always look like an
accordion," and he heard the horse's driver address him some sarcasms
before he could fully awaken to the situation. He was standing bareheaded
in the middle of Fifth Avenue and blocking the tide of carriages flowing
in either direction. Among the faces put out of the carriage windows he
saw that of Dryfoos looking from a coupe. The old man knew him, and said,
"Jump in here, Mr. March"; and March, who had mechanically picked up his
hat, and was thinking, "Now I shall have to tell Isabel about this at
once, and she will never trust me on the street again without her,"
mechanically obeyed. Her confidence in him had been undermined by his
being so near Conrad when he was shot; and it went through his mind that
he would get Dryfoos to drive him to a hatter's, where he could buy a new
hat, and not be obliged to confess his narrow escape to his wife till the
incident was some days old and she could bear it better. It quite drove
Lindau's death out of his mind for the moment; and when Dryfoos said if
he was going home he would drive up to the first cross-street and turn
back with him, March said he would be glad if he would take him to a
hat-store. The old man put his head out again and told the driver to take
them to the Fifth Avenue Hotel. "There's a hat-store around there
somewhere, seems to me," he said; and they talked of March's accident as
well as they could in the rattle and clatter of the street till they
reached the place. March got his hat, passing a joke with the hatter
about the impossibility of pressing his old hat over again, and came out
to thank Dryfoos and take leave of him.

"If you ain't in any great hurry," the old man said, "I wish you'd get in
here a minute. I'd like to have a little talk with you."