He
mustered up courage to ask a gentleman who passed where the nearest
station was, and then started in search of it. If the city gave it,
then there was no disgrace in it, and Lemuel had as much right to
anything that was going as other people; that was the way he
silenced his pride.
But he missed the place; he must have gone down the wrong street
from Tremont to Washington; the gentleman had said the street that
ran along the Common was Tremont, and the next was Washington. The
cross-street that Lemuel got into was filled with people, going and
coming, and lounging about. There were girls going along two or
three together with books under their arms, and other girls talking
with young fellows who hung about the doors of brightly lighted
shops, and flirting with them. One of the girls, whom he had seen
the day before in the Common, turned upon Lemuel as he passed, and
said, "There goes my young man _now_! Good evening, Johnny!" It
made Lemuel's cheek burn; he would have liked to box her ears for
her. The fellows all set up a laugh.
Towards the end of the street the crowd thickened, and there the
mixture of gas and the white moony lights that glared higher up, and
winked and hissed, shone upon the faces of a throng that had
gathered about the doors and windows of a store a little way down
the other street.
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