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"Good evening"

Ruta gasped; the voice startled her She squinted in the glooet lost My brother’s a cop"

"I’ve always had a great appreciation for the law" The stranger stepped fro tricks on her, because the ht His clothes were funny--hopelessly out of date: a tweed suit even though it arm, a vest and suit jacket, and a bowler hat He carried a walking stick with the silver head of a wolf at the top The wolf’s face was set in a snarl and its eyes were red like rubies Ruby--ha! That gave her a sh she couldn’t say why It occurred to her that she wasn’t in a safe place These dance hborhoods, where they wouldn’t draw too much attention fro lady to be walking alone," the stranger said, as if he’d read her thoughts He offered his arht be on her way to being a glarown up on the streets "Thanks all the same, mister, but I don’t need help," she said crisply When she turned to go, her ankle gave way, and she winced in pain

The stranger’s voice was deep and soothing "My sister and I run an establishhouse with a kitchen Perhaps you’d care to wait there? We’ve a telephone if you wish to call your family My sister, Bryda, has likely made paczki and coffee"

"Paczki?" Ruta repeated "You’re Polish?"

The stranger s to find our way in this extraordinary country, aren’t we, Miss…?"

"Ruta--Ruby Ruby Bates"

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Bates My name is Mr Hobbes" He tipped his hat "But my friends call me John"

"Thanks, Mr Hobbes," Ruta answered She swooned slightly froht aid you now" The man doused his handkerchief and held it out for her Ruta inhaled The scent was pungent and made her nose burn a little But she did feel peppier The stranger offered his arain, and this ti man, but his ar about that arm made Ruta cold inside, and she withdrew her own quickly

"I’ood now Theh"

He gave her a courtly little bow "As you wish"

They walked, the stranger’s silver-tipped stick thudding a hollow rhythnize

"What’s that song? I ain’t heard it on the radio before"

"No I expect you haven’t," the stranger answered

With his left arestured to the broken-doery, with its Christianhotels and tattoo parlors, restaurant-supply stores and rinky-dink manufacturers

" ‘Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city’ "

He pointed to where a couple of drunks slept on the stoop of a flophouse "Terrible Someone should clean up this sort of riffraff, turn them back at the borders They’re not like you and me, Miss Bates Clean Good citizens People with a city on the hill"

Ruta hadn’t ever thought about it before, but she found herself nodding She looked at those ust They were different froer shook his head "Once upon a time, the Boas home to the most stupendous restaurants and theaters The Bowery Theatre--that great American theater, which was a sock in the eye to the elitist European theaters The great thespian J B Booth, father of John Wilkes Booth, trod its boards Are you a patron of the arts, Miss Bates?"

"Yeah I mean, yes I aiddy The streets had a pretty glow to theirl such as you There’s so quite special about you, isn’t there, Miss Bates? I can tell that you have a very important destiny to fulfill, indeed ‘And the woold and precious stones…’ "

The stranger seness of the circus, Ruta ser at all, was he? He was Mr Hobbes Such a nice ht she was special He could see what no one else could It hat her grandmother would call a wrózba, an oratitude