At Mrs. Bostum's boarding-house, one of a row of the stare-faced packing-cases of the summer city, bathing-suits drying and kicking over veranda rails, a late quiet had fallen, only one window showing yellowly in the peak of its top story. A white-net screen door was unhooked from without by inserting a hand through a slit in the fabric. An uncarpeted pocket of hall lay deep in absolute blackness. Miss Hoag fumbled for the switch, finally leaving the Baron to the meager comfort of his first-floor back.
"Y'all right, honey? Can you reach what you want?"
The Baron clambered to a chair and up to her. His face had unknotted, the turmoil of little lines scattering.
"Aw!" he said. "Good old tub, Teenie! Good old Big Tent!"
A layer of tears sprang across Miss Hoag's glance and, suddenly gaining rush, ran down over her lashes. She dashed at them.
"I'm human, Baron. Maybe you don't know it, but I'm human."
"Now what did I do, Teenie?"
"It—it ain't you, Baron; it—it ain't anybody. It—it's—only I just wonder sometimes what God had in mind, anyways—making our kind. Where do we belong—"
"Aw, you're a great Heavy, Teenie—and it's the Bigs and the Littles got the cinch in this business. Looka the poor Siamese. How'd you like to be hitched up thataway all day. Looka Ossi. How'd you like to let 'em stick pins in you all for their ten cents' worth. Looka poor old Jas. Why, a girl's a fool to waste any heartache gettin' stuck on him. That old boy's going to wake up out of one of them spells dead some day. How'd you like to chew glass because it's big money and then drink it up so fast you'd got to borrow money off the albino girl for the doctor's prescription—"
The tears came now rivuleting down Miss Hoag's cheeks, bouncing off to the cape.