Gloomy town, thought Mathison, as he peered first from one window then from the other. Not a cheery, winking electric sign anywhere. Then he recalled the reason, as explained by the porter. A coal famine had forced a temporary abandonment of this wonder of American cities.
It was stinging cold, somewhere around zero. He threw the lap-robe over the cage. Malachi wasn't used to the cold. The shop-windows gleamed like beaten gold, so thick were they with frost. The cab lurched, staggered, and skidded.
"Lord! but the smell of clean snow!" He dipped his chin into his collar. He had been away from this kind of weather so long that it bit in.
Cabs in front and cabs behind. Were they following him? Likely enough. They would be fools if they didn't. A hot bath and a bed for himself and a room to rove about in for Malachi. The thing was written, anyhow; and deep down in his soul he knew that he was going to pull through. Fire, water, and poison gas.
In about ten minutes the cab came to a halt. The door was opened and a bellboy grinned hopefully and hospitably. Mathison stepped down from the cab, gave a dollar to the driver, and reached for Malachi and one of the kit-bags, leaving the other for the boy. He sprang up the hotel steps, keenly exhilarated. He felt alive for the first time in days. He swept on to the desk, planted the kit-bag strategically and ordered a room with a bath. But as the clerk offered the pen Mathison frowned. He hadn't planned against the contingency of signing his name to hotel registers. His slight hesitancy was not noticed by the clerk. Mathison was not without a fund of dry humor, and a flash of it swept over him at this moment.
He wrote "Richard Whittington, London." He chuckled inwardly. The name had popped into his head with one of those freakish rallies of memory; but presently he was going to regret it.
"Room with bath; number three hundred and twenty. Here, boy! How long do you expect to be with us, sir?" asked the clerk, perfunctorily.
"Until morning. Train stalled on account of wreck. You have a good safe?"
"Strong as a bank's."
"Very good. I'll be down shortly with some valuables."