Steve had a steak, liver and bacon, apple pie, a cup of coffee, and a toothpick—all in ten minutes. Then he resumed his place by the stove, lit a cigar, and kept his eye on the clock.
Three hours later Steve was again in his chair by the stove. He had been to the show and had sat through two hours of the performance. If his expression had savored of vinegar over the loss of his sample trunks, it was now double-proof vitriol!
"Thought you was goin' to the show," grunted the porter between his jerks at the handle; he was again at the stove, the thermometer marking zero outside.
"Been. Regular frost; buncoed out of fifty cents! That show is the limit! A couple of skinny-legged girls doing a clog stunt; a bag of bones in a low-necked dress playing Mrs. Langtry; and a wall-eyed clown that looked like a grave-digger. Rotten—worst I ever saw!"
"Full house?"
"Full of empties. 'Bout fifty people, I guess, counting deadheads—and ME."
Steve accentuated this last word as if his fifty cents had been the only real income of the house.
The outer door now opened, letting in a section of the north pole and a cough.
Steve twisted around in his chair and recognized Jerry Gobo, the clown. His grease paint was gone, but his haggard features and the graveyard hack settled his identity.
Jerry loosened the collar of his frayed, almost threadbare coat, approached the stove slowly, and stretching out one blue, emaciated hand, warmed it for an instant at its open door—in an apologetic way—as if the warming of one hand was all that he was entitled to.