The preacher, who was in a hurry to go to his
dinner, had told him, but Danny had had no libretto with which to follow
the drowsy intonation. But the preacher spoke the truth.
Suddenly Danny slapped his leg and gave forth a hoarse yell of delight.
"Hippopotamus!" he shouted to an elevated road pillar. "Well, how is
that for a bum guess? Why, blast my skylights! I know what he was
driving at now.
"Hippopotamus! Wouldn't that send you to the Bronx! It's been a year
since he heard it; and he didn't miss it so very far. We quit at 469
B. C., and this comes next. Well, a wooden man wouldn't have guessed
what he was trying to get out of him."
Danny caught a crosstown car and went up to the rear flat that his labor
supported.
Old man McCree was still sitting by the window. His extinct pipe lay on
the sill.
"Will that be you, lad?" he asked.
Danny flared into the rage of a strong man who is surprised at the
outset of committing a good deed.
"Who pays the rent and buys the food that is eaten in this house?" he
snapped, viciously. "Have I no right to come in?"
"Ye're a faithful lad," said old man McCree, with a sigh. "Is it evening
yet?"
Danny reached up on a shelf and took down a thick book labeled in gilt
letters, "The History of Greece.
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