Entering quietly and closing the door softly, he glanced appraisingly through the windows and made known his wants in a low voice. "I want a shave, haircut, shampoo, an' anythin' else you can think of. I 'm tired an' don't want to talk. Take yore own time an' do a good job; an' if I 'm asleep when yo're through, don't wake me till somebody else wants th' chair. Savvy? All right—start in."
In McCall's a stolid bartender listened to the snatches of conversation that filtered under the door to the dance hall alongside and on his face there at times flickered the suggestion of a cynical smile. A heavy, dark complexioned man entered from the street and glanced at the closed door of the dance hall. The bartender nodded and held up a staying hand, after which he shoved a drink across the bar. The heavy-set man carefully wiped a few drops of spilled liquor from his white, tapering hands and seated himself with a sigh of relief, and became busy with his thoughts until the time should come when he would be needed.
On the other side of that door a little comedy was being enacted. The musician, a woman, toyed with the keys of the warped and scratched piano, the dim light from the shaded windows mercifully hiding the paint and the hardness of her face and helping the jewelry, with which her hands were covered, keep its tawdry secret.
"I don't see what makes you so touchy," grumbled Sammy in a pout. "I ain't goin' to hurt you if I touch yore arm." He was flushed and there was a suspicious unsteadiness in his voice.
She laughed. "Why, I thought you wanted to talk?"
"I did," he admitted, sullenly; "but there's a limit to most wants. Oh, well: go ahead an' play. That last piece was all right; but give us a gallop or a mazurka—anything lively. Better yet, a caprice: it's in keepin' with yore temperament. If you was to try to interpert mine you 'd have to dig it out of Verdi an' toll a funeral bell."
"Say; who told you so much about music?" she demanded.
"Th' man that makes harmonicas," he grinned. He arose and took a step toward her, but she retreated swiftly, smiling. "Now behave yourself, for a little while, at least. What's th' matter with you, anyhow? What makes you so silly?"
"You, of course. I don't see no purty wimmin out on th' range, an' you went to my head th' minute I laid eyes on you. I ain't in no hurry to leave this town, now nohow."
"I 'm afraid you 're going to be awful when you grow up. But you 're a nice boy to say such pretty things. Here," she said, filling his glass and handing it to him, "let's drink another toast—you know such nice ones."