I got out.

The first glance was not rea.s.suring. It was perhaps more Greek than Colonial or Early English or Late Dutch. Four high wooden boxes, painted brown, were set up on end--Doric columns these--supporting a pediment of like material and color. Half-way up these supports hung a balcony, where the Fourth of July orator always stands when he addresses his fellow citizens. Old, of course, I said to myself--early part of this century. Not exactly moss-covered and inn-like, as I expected to find, but inside it's all right.

"Please take in that bag and fur overcoat." This to the driver, in a cheery tone.

The clerk was leaning over the counter, chewing a toothpick. Evidently he took me for a drummer, for he stowed the bag behind the desk, and hung the overcoat up on a nail in a side room opening out of the office, and within reach of his eye.

When I registered my name it made no perceptible change in his manner.

He said, "Want supper?" with a tone in his voice that convinced me he had not heard a word of the Event which brought me to West Norrington--I being the Event.

"No, not now. I would like you to send to my room in half an hour a broiled chicken, some celery, and any vegetable which you can get ready--and be good enough to put a pint of Burgundy"----

I didn't get any further. Something in his manner attracted me. I had not looked at him with any degree of interest before. He had been merely a medium for trunk check, room key, and ice water--nothing more.

Now I did. I saw a young man--a mean-looking young man--with a narrow, squeezed face, two flat gla.s.s eyes sewed in with red cotton, and a disastrous complexion. His hair was brushed like a barber's, with a scooping curl over the forehead; his neck was long and thin--so long that his apple looked over his collar's edge. This collar ran down to a white shirt decorated with a gold pin, the whole terminating in a low-cut velvet vest.

"Supper at seven," he said.

This, too, came with a jerk.

"Yes, I know, but I haven't eaten anything since breakfast, and don't want to wait until"----

"Ain't nuthin' cooked 'tween meals. Supper at seven."

"Can't I get"----

"Yer can't get nuthin' until supper-time, and yer won't get no Burgundy then. Yer couldn't get a bottle in Norrington with a club.

This town's prohibition. Want a room?" This last word was almost shouted in my ear.

"Yes--one with a wood fire." I kept my temper.

"Front!"--this to a boy half asleep on a bench. "Take this bag to No.

37, and turn on the steam. Your turn next"--and he handed the pen to a fresh arrival, who had walked up from the train.

No. 37 contained a full set of Michigan furniture, including a patent wash-stand that folded up to look like a bookcase, smelt slightly of varnish, and was as hot as a Pullman sleeper.

I threw up all the windows; came down and tackled the clerk again.

"Is there a restaurant near by?"

"Next block above. Nichols."

He never looked up--just kept on chewing the toothpick.

"Is there another hotel here?"

Even a worm will turn.

"No."

That settled it. I didn't know any inhabitant--not even a committeeman. It was the West Norrington Arms or the street.

So I started for Nichols. By that time I could have eaten the shingles off the church.

Nichols proved to be a one-and-a-half-story house with a gla.s.s door, a calico curtain, and a jingle bell. Inside was a cake shop, presided over by a thin woman in a gingham dress and black lace cap and wig. In the rear stood a marble-top table with iron legs. This made it a restaurant.

"Can you get me something to eat? Steak, ham and eggs--anything?" I had fallen in my desires.

She looked me all over. "Well, I'm 'mazin' sorry, but I guess you'll have to excuse us; we're just bakin', and this is our busy day.

S'mother time we should like to, but to-day"----

I closed the door and was in the street again. I had no time for lengthy discussions that didn't lead to something tangible and eatable.

"Alone in London," I said to myself. "Lost in New York. Adrift in West Norrington. Plenty of money to buy, and n.o.body to sell. Everybody going about their business with full stomachs, happy, contented,--all with homes, and firesides, and ice chests, and things hanging to cellar rafters, hams and such like, and I a wanderer and hungry, an outcast, a tramp."

Then I thought some citizen might take me in. She was a rather amiable-looking old lady, with a kind, motherly face.

"Madam!" This time I took off my hat. Ah, the common law of hunger brings you down and humbles your pride. "Do you live here, madam?"

"Why, yes, sir," edging to the sidewalk.

"Madam, I am a stranger here, and very hungry. It's baking-day at Nichols. Do you know where I can get anything to eat?"

"Well, no, I can't rightly say," still eyeing me suspiciously.

"Hungry, be ye? Well, that's too bad, and Nichols baking."

I corroborated all these statements, standing bare-headed, a wild idea running through my head that her heart would soften and she would take me home and set me down in a big chintz-covered rocking chair, near the geraniums in the windows, and have her daughter--a nice, fresh, rosy-cheeked girl in an ap.r.o.n--go out into the b.u.t.tery and bring in white cheese, and big slices of bread, and some milk, and preserves, and a---- But the picture was never completed.

"Well," she said slowly, "if Nichols is baking, I guess ye'll hev to wait till suppertime."

Then like a sail to a drowning man there rose before me the sign down the hill near the station, "Five meals for a dollar."

I had the money. I had the appet.i.te. I would eat them all at once, and _now_.

In five minutes I was abreast of the extra-dry oyster-sh.e.l.ls and the pool b.a.l.l.s. Then I pushed open the door.

Inside there was a long room, bare of everything but a wooden counter, upon which stood a gla.s.s case filled with cigars; behind this was a row of shelves with jars of candy, and level with the lower shelf my eye caught a slouch hat. The hat covered the head of the proprietor.

He was sitting on a stool, sorting out chewing-gum.

"Can I get something to eat?"

The hat rose until it stood six feet in the air, surmounting a round, good-natured face, ending in a chin whisker.

"Cert. What'll yer hev?"

Here at last was peace and comfort and food and things! I could hardly restrain myself.

"Anything. Steak, fried potatoes--what have you got?"