'Gates is in London,' he said.
'What! When did he go there?'
'About four months ago.'
'May I come in a minute?'
'Yes, rather, do.'
He led the way into the sitting-room. The stranger gave abruptly
in the middle, as if he were being folded up by some invisible
agency, and in this attitude sank into a chair, where he lay back
looking at Bill over his knees, like a sorrowful sheep peering
over a sharp-pointed fence.
'You're from England, aren't you?'
'Yes.'
'Been in New York long?'
'Only a couple of days.'
The stranger folded himself up another foot or so until his knees
were higher than his head, and lit a cigarette.
'The curse of New York,' he said, mournfully, 'is the way
everything changes in it. You can't take your eyes off it for a
minute. The population's always shifting. It's like a railway
station. You go away for a bit and come back and try to find your
old pals, and they're all gone: Ike's in Arizona, Mike's in a
sanatorium, Spike's in jail, and nobody seems to know where the
rest of them have got to. I came up from the country two days ago,
expecting to find the old gang along Broadway the same as ever,
and I'm dashed if I've been able to put my hands on one of them!
Not a single, solitary one of them! And it's only six months since
I was here last.
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