Wint went to Sam O’Brien’s restaurant for dinner. It was a little after his usual hour, and there were only two or three others on the stools before the high, scrubbed counter. O’Brien waited on Wint himself, and Wint ate in silence, under the other’s sympathetic eye.
When he paid for his dinner, O’Brien asked heartily:
“Well, Wint, m’ boy, how’s tricks?”
Wint looked up at the other and smiled wearily. “Rotten, Sam,” he said.
O’Brien protested. “Lord, now, I’d not say that. As fine a day as it is.”
“I wasn’t talking about the weather,” Wint told him. “It’s just.... I guess I’m in the dumps, Sam. I’ve got a hunch. I’ve got a hunch something’s going to drop on me like a ton of bricks.”
“A hunch like that is bum company,” O’Brien commented. “Where did you get it, Wint?”
Wint shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Lord, boy! You act like you’d lost your nerve, Wint.”
Wint said: “Maybe I have.” He was terribly depressed, almost ready to drop out and surrender.