The curious reluctance to speak, of which Seth had felt vaguely conscious all along, now prompted acquiescence as the easiest course, and he followed Tom into a small, low room, thick with cigar-smoke and the odor of kerosene, where four or five men, with their hats tilted over their eyes, were playing cards: there was a pile of money in the centre of the table, to which each in turn seemed to be adding from a smaller heap before him. They were so much engrossed in the game that they only nodded at Tom, and Seth felt relieved at escaping the ordeal of being introduced to them. At Tom’s suggestion he took a little glass of brandy—“to do their duty by the National debt,”—what ever that meant. It was burning, nauseous stuff, which brought the tears to his eyes, but it made him feel better.
It especially enabled him to talk, which he proceeded to do now with a fluency that surprised him. Tom was evidently much impressed by his remarks, saying little, it is true, but gripping his arm more closely. Thus they walked to Tom’s lodgings—a tall, dark brick house opposite a long line of coal sheds. The hall was so dark that Seth, in trying to follow his guide, stumbled over an umbrella-rack, and fell to the floor. Tom assisted him to rise, with a paternal “steady now, steady; that’s it, lean on me,” and so helped him up the two flights of steep, narrow stairs. In all the world, it seemed to Seth, he could not have met a more amiable or congenial friend than Tom, and he told him so, as they climbed the stairs, affectionately leaning upon his arm, and making his phrases as ornate in diction and warm in tone as he could.
“Here we are,” said Tom, opening a door, and lighting a lamp which revealed a small, scantily furnished room, in extreme disorder. “Make yourself at home, my boy. Smoke a pipe before you go to bed?”
“Oh, mercy, no. I thinks—do you know, I feel a little dizzy.”
“Oh, you’ll be all right in the morning. Just undress and pile into bed. I’ll smoke a pipe first.” Half an hour after Seth’s first day in the World had closed in heavy slumber, Tom looked at him before blowing out the light, and smiled to himself: “He is about as fresh as they make ’em.”
CHAPTER XII.—THE SANCTUM.
The young men dressed next morning in almost complete silence. Tom was still sleepy, and seemed much less jovial and attractive than he had been the previous evening; Seth, accustomed to far earlier rising, was acutely awake, but his head ached wearily and there was a dreadful dryness in his mouth and throat. They went through the forms of breakfast in the basement, too, without much conversation. Seth was ashamed of the number of cups of coffee he drank, and carried away only confused recollections of having been introduced to a middle-aged woman in black who sat at the head of the table, and of having perfunctorily answered sundry questions about business in Dearborn County, put by a man who sat next to him.
They were well on their way to the office before Tom’s silent mood wore away.