"No. I'll be glad to, thank you, Phil. Where do you go?"
"Let's try Sanguinetti's for the fun of the thing. We can talk down there, and it won't break us, either."
They found a corner table in the restaurant. The room wore the quiet look of Monday evening, the calm that follows the storm of Sunday, when the place rocks with post-picnic revelry. A squat negro, perched on the edge of a serving-table by the wall, sang vociferously to a resonant banjo. Now and then a party of swarthy Latins joined in mildly when the selections incurred their favor.
The two college men found it easy chatting. Williamson's dollar had brought a very good dinner, particularly the chicken and the tortillas; the claret was abundant and not half bad when jollied with seltzer. He was trusting to Lincoln for tobacco.
Still the physician could not bring himself to the point toward which the dinner was intended to smooth the road. The "Dago red" had mellowed them both and they talked merrily of the days at Palo Alto, bringing up one good memory after another, drifting gradually to an exchange of Alumni personals of which the newspaper man furnished the larger part. They talked of the men their young University had sent into the distant parts of the world, youngsters running mines in the Antipodes, with fat salaries to keep up their courage; of the little Stanford colony in Western Australia and the Pioneers in China. There were a good many for so new a college. Then there were the commonplaces who were doing well at home. The thought of bringing the serious side of his own case into this chat gave Williamson a chill. It was a foolish bit of pride, but it was getting harder every minute to down it. He deftly turned the subject his way.
"It isn't all prosperity, though. I've noticed that some of them seem to be up against it lately—just hard luck stories, I suppose. There's Rawdon, for example."
Lincoln leaned back comfortably in his chair.
"Let me tell you a case that has come under my notice lately and see what you think of it," he said. "I won't mention names, but it's about a man we both knew at College. He had a place on the paper, the Chronicle, and during the political season did very well; after that there came a slump and the city editor let him out; the other papers had no room for him, of course—they were dropping men—and he couldn't get a thing of any sort to do, though he rustled hard. You know Coles and Harrison, the boys call them the Stanford Employment Bureau, they have found quite a number of places for the fellows; but this particular man was evidently up against it, and there wasn't the smallest symptom of a job. He managed to get something in the Sunday supps, but barely enough to keep him alive, and nothing certain. Meanwhile he pawned his things gradually and grew pretty well discouraged. I remember I heard him say once, and his laugh covered more than I guessed at the time, that Jewish holidays ought to be prohibited by state law, since closed doors under the three balls meant some Stanford man's going hungry. He got down to bedrock and finally reached the point where he had gone without three successive meals. Pretty rough, wasn't it?"
"I should say so," answered Williamson. His own distress was trivial beside a trouble like this.
Lincoln fed the alcohol flame burning around the omelet just brought them.