“Did you get it, old boy?” asks the man with the nose.
“Get your grandmother!” growls the sour man.
“That fellow Reed is the biggest liar in America. Feller from Maine got it. I’m a populist from this day on. Got the price of a toddy, Jimmy?”
The engine stands and puffs sullenly. The crowd disperses gradually, stringing by twos, threes and larger through the waiting-room doors. Depot officials hustle along, pushing their way among the people.
A brakeman springs from his car and runs up to a dim female figure lurking in the shadow of the depot.
“How is the kid?” he asks sharply with an uneven breath.
“Bad,” says the woman, in a dry, low voice. “Fever a hundred and four all day. Keeps a-calling of you all the time, Jim. Got to go out again tonight?”
“Orders,” says Jim and then: “No, cussed if I do. The company can go to the devil. Callin’ of me, is he? Come on, Liz.” He takes the woman’s arm and they hurry away into the darkness.
A ragged man with a dreary whine to his voice fastens upon a big stranger in a long overcoat who is hurrying hotel-wards.
“Have you a dime, sir, a man could get something to eat with?” The big man pauses and says kindly, “Certainly. I have more than that. I have at least a dollar for supper, and I’m going up to the Hutchins House and get it. Good night.”