Harvey O'Higgins

“ Life had resumed its mask of civilization, its conventional indifference, its public disavowal even of his common humanity.
He turned into the cross street, came to the side door of the hotel, hesitated at the sight of her feather tickler hanging broken over the curbstone—its feathers waving feebly in the wind—and then passed on, with the blank face of a bankrupt who sees his last penny still lying where he had flung it in the mud. ”

“ When the young hoodlums had shoved by and the pressure of the crowd had eased again, she was claimed by a man in an automobile-cap and a woman, who was apparently either French or Jewish. Fasken released her, still holding her hand. The current took her. She drifted away from him, smiling back over her shoulder until another feather tickler was thrust into his face and he lost sight of her.
And now he found himself as intoxicated as were all around him with the spirit of carnival. He wanted to follow the girl, to make love to her; to kiss her. ”

“ Fasken remained a long time, silent, standing in the shadow, with her tickler in his hand. Suddenly, he stepped into the light, raised the stick of feathers above his head—in a convulsive despair of himself and his lot in life—flung it on the sidewalk before him, and ground it into the stones with a murderous heel. ”

“ And then the girl in the white veil, with whom he had had his first encounter, reappeared on the sidewalk, returning toward Madison Square; and with the same audacious demureness as before she whisked her stick of feathers into the faces of the five conspirators on the lowest step. Immediately they pounced upon her like a band of Indians. Fasken shouldered down into the scrimmage to help her. She was shot into his arms, her mouth open, her hands limp, helpless with laughter; and he was carried up the steps with her and pinned against the hotel door.
"Are you hurt? Are you hurt?" ”

“ He received a blow on the top of his hat with a bladder; they were showered with confetti, like a bride and groom. A man reached across him to brush her face with a tickler. Fasken snatched at the stick, got it away from its owner with a sudden turn of the wrist, and gave it to her. She could not make herself heard above the noise, but she thanked him with a pressure on his arm and with an intimate, bright smile when he looked down at her. ”

“ Then a young woman, with a white automobile-veil thrown over her hat and loosely knotted under her chin, put her feather tickler in his eyes, and he caught at it and grasped her hand. She was crushed against him by the clogging of the opposing currents of movement on the sidewalk, and she laughed up at him, her cheeks flushed pink against the white chiffon. ”

“ He had been reminded of the ants he used to watch as a boy, in the fields at home, hurrying past one another, scrambling over one another, without stopping for a moment to assist or direct, or in any way recognize one another as members of a community engaged in a common task. ”

“ He even made as if to turn back, but the impatience of those whose progress he opposed swept him away, and he went on, bewildered by his own agitation, his hands full of feathers that he had torn from a stick, catching at the girls who attacked him, and determined that if another were forced into his arms he would not let her go so easily. ”

“ When a young man passed a young woman, he tickled her chin with a bunch of feathers fastened to a small stick; and she replied by doing the same to him, by throwing in his face a handful of chopped paper, or by catching the feathers of his "tickler" and struggling to take it from him. ”