He took off his apron, nevertheless, as if he, too, were anxiously expectant, and he cast repeated glances at the door, where, painted on the window in white letters, were the words, “Coffee John’s.” Then he left the range behind the counter and came across the sanded floor to the single oil-lamp that lighted the two men who were his last patrons for the day.
The younger, he with the red sweater, had a round, jocund face and a merry, rolling eye that misfortune was powerless to tame, though the lad had evidently discovered Vagabondia.
“Who’s your interesting but mysterious friend?” he asked. “You’re not expecting a lady, I hope!” and he glanced at his coat which, though it had the cut of a fashionable tailor, was an atrocious harlequin of spots and holes.
“I don’t know who’s a comin’ no more’n you do,” Coffee John replied. “But see ’ere!” and he pointed with a blunt red finger at an insurance calendar upon the wall. “D’yer cop that there numero? It’s the Thirteenth of October to-dye, an’ they’ll be comp’ny all right. They allus is, the Thirteenth of October!”
“Well, you rope him and we’ll brand him,” remarked the other at the table, a man of some twenty-two years, with a typically Western cast of countenance, high cheek-bones and an aquiline nose. His eyes were gray-blue behind rusty steel spectacles. “I hope that stranger will come pretty durn pronto,” he added.
“There’ll be somethink a-doin’ before nine, I give yer my word. I’ll eat this ’ere bloomin’ pile o’ plytes if they ain’t!” Coffee John asserted.
Scarcely had he made the remark when the clock rang out, ending his sentence like a string of exclamation points, and immediately the door burst open and a man sprang into the room as though he were a runaway from Hell.
In his long, thin, white face two black eyes, set near together, burned with terror. His mouth was open and quivering, his hands were fiercely clinched. Under a battered Derby hat his stringy black hair and ragged beard played over his paper collar in a fringe. He wore a cutaway suit, green and shiny with age, which, divorced at the waist, showed a ring of red flannel undershirt. He crept up to the counter like a kicked spaniel.
“For God’s sake, gimme a drink o’ coffee, will you?” he whined.
“Wot’s bitin’ yer?” Coffee John inquired without sentiment. “Don’t yer ask me to chynge a ’undred-dollar bill, fur I reelly can’t do it!”