Jimmy was hungry, for he had not eaten since breakfast and it was now late afternoon. Perched high on a stool at the counter, he watched Gus, the cook, pound sandwich meat into two flat cakes which he slapped on the smoking grille.
“Plenty of excitement around here today,” the man volunteered. “The police caught a fellow wanted for stealing automobiles. They just walked in and yanked him off a stool. Coffee?”
Jimmy nodded mechanically. “Wish I had been here,” he said. “That’s the trouble. I’m never around at the right time.”
As he ate his sandwich, Jimmy stared out the window. He dreaded going home. Not that his mother would blame him for failing to find a position. She encouraged him in his ambition to follow a chosen field of work, but camera supplies constantly drained their slender resources. The small amount of monthly insurance dividends was barely enough to feed and clothe them, and keep his younger sister, Joan, in school. He never accepted pocket money without a sense of shame.
A loud screeching of brakes on the pavement, caused Jimmy to whirl around. A black sedan, ignoring a traffic light which had flashed from green to red, plunged across the intersection at high speed, to crash into the side of a blue automobile driven by a woman.
Both boys leaped down from their stools. Jimmy pulled his miniature camera from his pocket, adjusting it as he ran out into the street.
One of the first persons to reach the scene of the accident, he snapped a picture of the wreck, and then took a second photograph just as the driver of the black sedan stepped to the pavement. Without particularly taking mental note of the fact, Jimmy saw that the man was heavy-set with dark hair and bushy brows. His companion who did not alight appeared to be a tall, thin fellow with a slightly hooked nose.
The woman driver also left her car. One glance at the damaged fenders and she began to berate the two men in an angry voice.
“Just see what you have done! You’ll have to pay for this! It was entirely your fault because you went against the light!”
A crowd had gathered. Opinion was divided as to who had caused the accident, but the majority of pedestrians favored the woman driver. One man offered to telephone for the police.