The rescued man had by this time recovered his breath and some of his dignity, though he was pale of face behind his flowing gray whiskers, and soaking wet. As indeed was the tired Pop, who had not been eating too regularly of late and was feeling a little weak in the stomach.
"Can't you wait for that stuff?" asked the man snatched from the watery grave. "You see we're both half dead and wet to the skins."
"I gotta have the names," insisted the policeman.
"All right. I'm William Rockwell, president of the Crosstown Railway Company. "I was on the bow of the Brooklyn ferry and was knocked overboard. And this man here is a hero if there ever was one." He put a kindly if heavy hand on Pop's shoulder.
Though he did not realize it at the time, with those appreciative words and that clasp on the back Pop Dillon was fixed for life.
Pop blinked. He had heard of William Rockwell. Rockwell was sole owner of a horse car line operating downtown New York. The man was tich, though not as rich as he had been before the electric railways, the elevated system and the subways put horse cars out of date and largely out of business. Rockwell's cars now ran on only three or four streets and there were rumors that even these horse-drawn vehicles remaining were soon to give way to electricity.
By this time the mob outside had dispersed. The policeman, having secured his data and making certain rescued and rescuer were all right, had left.
