The Project Gutenberg EBook of Martha By-the-Day, by Julie M. Lippmann

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Title: Martha By-the-Day

Author: Julie M. Lippmann

Release Date: February 1, 2005 [EBook #14854]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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MARTHA BY-THE-DAY

By JULIE M. LIPPMANN

1912

CHAPTER I

If you are one of the favored few, privileged to ride in chaises, you
may find the combination of Broadway during the evening rush-hour, in a
late November storm, stimulating--you may, that is, provided you have a
reliable driver. If, contrariwise, you happen to be of the class whose
fate it is to travel in public conveyances (and lucky if you have the
price!) and the car, say, won't stop for you--why--

Claire Lang had been standing in the drenching wet at the
street-crossing for fully ten minutes. The badgering crowd had been
shouldering her one way, pushing her the other, until, being a stranger
and not very big, she had become so bewildered that she lost her head
completely, and, with the blind impulse of a hen with paresis, darted
straight out, in amidst the crush of traffic, with all the chances
strong in favor of her being instantly trampled under foot, or ground
under wheel, and never a one to know how it had happened.

An instant, and she was back again in her old place upon the curbstone.
Something like the firm iron grip of a steam-derrick had fastened on her
person, hoisted her neatly up, and set her as precisely down, exactly
where she had started from.

It took her a full second to realize what had happened. Then, quick as a
flash, anger flamed up in her pale cheeks, blazed in her tired eyes.
For, of course, this was an instance of "insult" described by "the
family at home" as common to the experience of unprotected girls in New
York City. She groped about in her mind for the formula to be applied in
such cases, as recommended by Aunt Amelia. "Sir, you are no gentleman!
If you were a gentleman, you w