I didn't blame her. If you gave me two hundred a month I wouldn't have stayed there.
Just then Babbitts came in and we began our supper; cold ham and stale bread and coffee that I know was the morning's heated over. Tecla went into the kitchen and I said to him, low and guarded:
"What's Hines been saying to you?"
He answered in the same key:
"Oh, putting up a hard luck story. Cresset needn't bother. He wants to pull up stakes and go West."
"Will they let him?"
"That's one of the things he's been talking about. He says if he makes a move it'll look suspicious, and if he stays he'll be ruined. He certainly is up against it."
I shot a glance from the kitchen to the bar door and then leaned across the table, almost whispering:
"I don't see that our investigations have got us anything but a bad supper."
"Neither do I," he whispered back. "The place looks like a stage setting for The Bandits' Den, but the people don't impress me that way at all."