PIRATES AND PRIVATE SECRETARIES
It was a little station made gloomy by a single light. Once in so often a fast train stopped, if properly flagged. Fitzgerald, feeling wholly unromantic, now that he had arrived, dropped his hand-bag on the damp platform and took his bearings. It was after sundown. The sea, but a few yards away, was a murmuring, heaving blackness, save where here and there a wave broke. The wind was chill, and there was the hint of a storm coming down from the northeast.
"Any hotel in this place?" he asked of the ticket agent, the telegraph operator, and the baggageman, who was pushing a crate of vegetables off a truck.
"Swan's Hotel; only one."
"Do people sleep and eat there?"
"If they have good digestions."
"Much obliged."
"Whisky's no good, either."
"Thanks again. This doesn't look much like a summer resort."
"Nobody ever said it was. I beg your pardon, but would you mind taking an end of this darned crate?"