"Waal, I dunno. 'Tain't time yit for supper, but we kin fix ye somehow. Lemme see."

Then he pushed back a curtain that screened one half of the room, disclosing three square tables with white cloths and casters, and disappeared through a rear door.

"We got a steak," he said, dividing the curtains again, "but the potatoes is out."

"Any celery?"

"No. Guess can git ye some 'cross to ther grocery. Won't take a minit."

"All right. Could you"--and I lowered my voice--"could you get me a bottle of beer?"

"Yes--if you got a doctor's prescription."

"Could _you_ write one?" I asked nervously.

"I'll try." And he laughed.

In two minutes he was back, carrying four bunches of celery and a paper box marked "Paraffine candles."

"What preserves have you?"

"Waal, any kind."

"Raspberry jam, or apricots?" I inquired, my spirits rising.

"We ain't got no rusberry, but we got peaches."

"Anything else?"

"Waal, no; come ter look 'em over, just peaches."

So he added a can to the celery and candles, and carried the whole to the rear.

While he was gone I leaned over the cigar-case and examined the stock.

One box labeled "Bouquet" attracted my eye; each cigar had a little paper band around its middle. I remembered the name, and determined to smoke one after dinner if it took my last cent.

Then a third person took a hand in the feast. This was the hired girl, who came in with a tray. She wore an alpaca dress and a disgusted expression. It was evident that she resented my hunger as a personal affront--stopping everything to get supper two hours ahead of time!

She didn't say this aloud, but I knew it all the same.

Then more tray, with a covered dish the size of a soap-cup, a few sprigs of celery out of the four bunches, and a preserve-dish, about the size of a b.u.t.ter pat, containing four pieces of peach swimming in their own juice.

In the soap-dish lay the steak. It was four inches in diameter and a quarter of an inch thick. I opened the paraffine candles, poured out half a gla.s.s, and demolished the celery and peaches. I didn't want to muss up the steak. I was afraid I might bend it, and spoil it for some one else.

Then an idea struck me: "Could she poach me some eggs?"

She supposed she could, if she could find the eggs; most everything was locked up this time of day.

I waited, and spread the mustard on the dry bread, and had more peaches and paraffine. When the eggs came they excited my sympathies.

They were such innocent-looking things--pinched and shriveled up, as if they had fainted at sight of the hot water and died in great agony.

The toast, too, on which they were coffined, had a cremated look. Even the hired girl saw this. She said it was a "leetle mite too much browned; she'd forgot it watchin' the eggs."

Here the street door opened, and a young woman entered and asked for two papers of chewing-gum.

She got them, but not until the proprietor had shot together the curtains screening off the candy store from the restaurant. The dignity and exclusiveness of the establishment required this.

When she was gone I poured out the rest of the paraffine, and called out through the closed curtains for a cigar.

"One of them bo-kets?" came the proprietor's voice in response.

"Yes, one of them."

He brought it himself, in his hand, just as it was, holding the mouth end between the thumb and forefinger.

"And now how much?"

He made a rapid accounting, overlooking the table, his eyes lighting on the several fragments: "Beer, ten cents; steak, ten; peaches, five; celery, three; eggs on toast, ten; one bo-ket, four." Then he paused a moment, as if he wanted to be entirely fair and square, and said, "Forty-two cents."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "FORTY-TWO CENTS"]

When I reached the hotel, a man who said he was the proprietor came to my room. He was a sad man with tears in his voice.

"You're comin' to supper, ain't ye? It'll be the last time. It's a kind o' mournful occasion, but I like to have ye."

It was now my turn.

"No, I'm not coming to supper. You drove me out of here half starving into the street two hours ago. I couldn't get anything to eat at Nichols, and so I had to go down the hill to a place near the saw-mill, where I got the most infernal"----

He stopped me with a look of real anxiety.

"Not the five-meals-for-a-dollar place?"

"Yes."

"And you swallowed it?"

"Certainly--poached eggs, peaches, and a lot of things."

"No," he said reflectively, looking at me curiously. "_You_ don't want no supper--prob'bility is you won't want no breakfast, either.

You'd better eaten the saw-mill--it would 'er set lighter. If I'd known who you were I'd tried"----

"But I told the clerk," I broke in.

"What clerk?" he interrupted in an astonished tone.

"Why, the clerk at the desk, where I registered--that long-necked crane with red eyes."

"He ain't no clerk; we ain't had one for a week. Don't you know what's goin' on? Ain't you read the bills? Step out into the hall--there's one posted up right in front of you. 'Sheriff's sale; all the stock and fixtures of the Norrington Arms to be sold on Wednesday morning'--that's to-morrow--'by order of the Court.' You can read the rest yourself; print's too fine for me. That fellow you call a crane is a deputy sheriff. He's takin' charge, while we eat up what's in the house."