An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

again.

“Please, Clyde, please,” she began now, most artfully, “I

mean that. Really, I do. Won’t you believe me? But I will

next week, sure. Honest, I will. Won’t you believe that? I

meant everything I said when I said it. Honest, I did. I do

like you—a lot. Won’t you believe that, too—please?”

And Clyde, thrilled from head to toe by this latest phase of

her artistry, agreed that he would. And once more he began

to smile and recover his gayety. And by the time they

reached the car, to which they were all called a few minutes

after by Hegglund, because of the time, and he had held

her hand and kissed her often, he was quite convinced that

the dream he had been dreaming was as certain of

fulfillment as anything could be. Oh, the glory of it when it

should come true!

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Chapter 19

FOR the major portion of the return trip to Kansas City,

there was nothing to mar the very agreeable illusion under

which Clyde rested. He sat beside Hortense, who leaned

her head against his shoulder. And although Sparser, who

had waited for the others to step in before taking the wheel,

had squeezed her arm and received an answering and

promising look, Clyde had not seen that.

But the hour being late and the admonitions of Hegglund,

Ratterer and Higby being all for speed, and the mood of

Sparser, because of the looks bestowed upon him by

Hortense, being the gayest and most drunken, it was not

long before the outlying lamps of the environs began to

show. For the car was rushed along the road at break-neck

speed. At one point, however, where one of the eastern

trunk lines approached the city, there was a long and

unexpected and disturbing wait at a grade crossing where

two freight trains met and passed. Farther in, at North

Kansas City, it began to snow, great soft slushy flakes,

feathering down and coating the road surface with a

slippery layer of mud which required more caution than had

been thus far displayed. It was then half past five.

Ordinarily, an additional eight minutes at high speed would

have served to bring the car within a block or two of the

hotel. But now, with another delay near Hannibal Bridge

owing to grade crossing, it was twenty minutes to six before

the bridge was crossed and Wyandotte Street reached. And

already all four of these youths had lost all sense of the

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delight of the trip and the pleasure the companionship of

these girls had given them. For already they were worrying

as to the probability of their reaching the hotel in time. The

smug and martinetish figure of Mr. Squires loomed before

them all.

“Gee, if we don’t do better than this,” observed Ratterer to

Higby, who was nervously fumbling with his watch, “we’re

not goin’ to make it. We’ll hardly have time, as it is, to

change.”

Clyde, hearing him, exclaimed: “Oh, crickets! I wish we

could hurry a little. Gee, I wish now we hadn’t come to-day.

It’ll be tough if we don’t get there on time.”

And Hortense, noting his sudden tenseness and unrest,

added: “Don’t you think you’ll make it all right?”

“Not this way,” he said. But Hegglund, who had been

studying the flaked air outside, a world that seemed dotted

with falling bits of cotton, called: “Eh, dere Willard. We

certainly gotta do better dan dis. It means de razoo for us if

we don’t get dere on time.”

And Higby, for once stirred out of a gambler-like effrontery

and calm, added: “We’ll walk the plank all right unless we

can put up some good yarn. Can’t anybody think of

anything?” As for Clyde, he merely sighed nervously.

And then, as though to torture them the more, an

unexpected crush of vehicles appeared at nearly every

intersection. And Sparser, who was irritated by this

particular predicament, was contemplating with impatience

the warning hand of a traffic policeman, which, at the

intersection of Ninth and Wyandotte, had been raised

against him. “There goes his mit again,” he exclaimed.

“What can I do about that! I might turn over to Washington,

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but I don’t know whether we’ll save any time by going over

there.”

A full minute passed before he was signaled to go forward.

Then swiftly he swung the car to the right and three blocks

over into Washington Street.

But here the conditions were no better. Two heavy lines of

traffic moved in opposite directions. And at each

succeeding corner several precious moments were lost as

the cross-traffic went by. Then the car would tear on to the

next corner, weaving its way in and out as best it could.

At Fifteenth and Washington, Clyde exclaimed to Ratterer:

“How would it do if we got out at Seventeenth and walked

over?”

“You won’t save any time if I can turn over there,” called

Sparser. “I can get over there quicker than you can.”

He crowded the other cars for every inch of available

space. At Sixteenth and Washington, seeing what he

considered a fairly clear block to the left, he turned the car

and tore along that thoroughfare to as far as Wyandotte

once more. Just as he neared the corner and was about to

turn at high speed, swinging in close to the curb to do so, a

little girl of about nine, who was running toward the

crossing, jumped directly in front of the moving machine.

And because there was no opportunity given him to turn

and avoid her, she was struck and dragged a number of

feet before the machine could be halted. At the same time,

there arose piercing screams from at least half a dozen

women, and shouts from as many men who had witnessed

the accident.

Instantly they all rushed toward the child, who had been

thrown under and passed over by the wheels. And Sparser,

looking out and seeing them gathering about the fallen

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figure, was seized with an uninterpretable mental panic

which conjured up the police, jail, his father, the owner of

the car, severe punishment in many forms. And though by

now all the others in the car were up and giving vent to

anguished exclamations such as “Oh, God! He hit a little

girl”; “Oh, gee, he’s killed a kid!”“Oh, mercy!”“Oh, Lord!”“Oh,

heavens, what’ll we do now?” he turned and exclaimed:

“Jesus, the cops! I gotta get outa this with this car.”

And, without consulting the others, who were still half

standing, but almost speechless with fear, he shot the lever

into first, second and then high, and giving the engine all

the gas it would endure, sped with it to the next corner

beyond.

But there, as at the other corners in this vicinity, a

policeman was stationed, and having already seen some

commotion at the corner west of him, had already started to

leave his post in order to ascertain what it was. As he did

so, cries of “Stop that car”—“Stop that car”—reached his

ears. And a man, running toward the sedan from the scene

of the accident, pointed to it, and called: “Stop that car, stop

that car. They’ve killed a child.”

Then gathering what was meant, he turned toward the car,

putting his police whistle to his mouth as he did so. But

Sparser, having by this time heard the cries and seen the

policeman leaving, dashed swiftly past him into

Seventeenth Street, along which he sped at almost forty

miles an hour, grazing the hub of a truck in one instance,

scraping the fender of an automobile in another, and

missing by inches and quarter inches vehicles or

pedestrians, while those behind him in the car were for the

most part sitting bolt upright and tense, their eyes wide,

their hands clenched, their faces and lips set—or, as in the

case of Hortense and Lucille Nickolas and Tina Kogel,

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207

giving voice to repeated, “Oh, Gods!”“Oh, what’s going to

happen now?”

But the police and those who had started to pursue were

not to be outdone so quickly. Unable to make out the

license plate number and seeing from the first motions of

the car that it had no intention of stopping, the officer blew a

loud and long blast on his police whistle. And the policeman

at the next corner seeing the car speed by and realizing

what it meant, blew on his whistle, then stopped, and

springing on the running board of a passing touring car

ordered it to give chase. And at this, seeing what was

amiss or awind, three other cars, driven by adventurous

spirits, joined in the chase, all honking loudly as they came.

But the Packard had far more speed in it than any of its

pursuers, and although for the first few blocks of the pursuit