The Ghost Phone
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Once more old Peter Podd started impulsively toward the stairs, and then thought better of it and returned to the tradesmen’s entrance. He stood before the open door and looked out at the clean alley. They kept the alley as clean here as the avenue in front, for the servants used it going to and from the street.
It was Sunday afternoon and almost three o’clock. Summer had come in earnest. Crowds were hurrying to the parks. The avenues and boulevards were thronged with automobiles. Couples of pedestrians went slowly along the walks. Children played at the edges of green lawns.
But old Peter Podd was not in the proper mood to enjoy the day. His scant hair was white, his face was seamed and wrinkled and weatherbeaten, his shoulders were stooped and his hands gnarled. For almost forty of the fifty years he had lived, Peter Podd had been compelled to resort to hard labor to gain sustenance, and the struggle had left its marks upon him.