As they passed the janitor, Flint said, "I shall be back by ten. If any one comes to see me you have the key of my rooms, and let any visitor come in and wait."
"All right, sir!"
"And see that the fire is kept up."
"Yes, sir."
Flint shivered as he passed out of the warm, heavily carpeted halls into the chilly night of late November.
"To-morrow will be Thanksgiving, won't it?" Brady observed.
"Yes, and judging by the number of turkeys on this avenue there will be no family without one. I heard last year of a poor widow who had six sent her by different charitable institutions. That is what I call a pressure of subsistence on population."
Something in Flint's manner jarred upon his companion. It seemed like a determined opposition to any undue influence of sentiment or emotion. Brady could not have defined the attitude of his friend's mind; but he felt it, and [Pg 314] resented it to the extent of keeping silence after they had taken their seats in the car of the elevated road.
There were few other passengers, and the car smelled of lamp-oil. All surrounding influences tended to depress Brady's ordinarily buoyant spirits, and he wished he had stayed at home, or at any rate had left Flint behind. Meanwhile his companion, apparently wholly oblivious of the frigidity of his companion's manner, sat with his hat pulled over his eyes, and his face as undecipherable as the riddle of the Sphinx.
As the cars stopped at a station half-way between the up-town residences and the downtown offices, in the slum belt of the city, Brady buttoned up his overcoat and rose, saying shortly, "We get out here."