"Then let us look around and find out. Right now I'd rather be in old Gid's house, sitting with somebody on a bench—and I'm going back to-morrow. What fun is there in poking about this way like a couple of gawks? You even pull me away from the supper table to tramp up and down these streets. Hang it, I don't want to see people. Every face I see is——"
"A disappointment," said the giant.
"Then why do you take the crowded side of the street? Let's go in here and sit down a moment."
They had halted in front of a music hall. From within proceeded the husky song of a worn-out negro minstrel.
"You may go in but I'll walk on," Jim replied. "It's nothing but a dive. I'll go on down to the corner and wait for you. Don't stay long."
Jim strode away and Tom went into the beer hall. At the far end was a stage, and on it stood the minstrel, dimmed by intervening tobacco smoke. The floor was covered with damp saw-dust. The place was thronged with a motley crowd, sailors, gamblers, with here and there a sprinkle of wayward respectability. Painted girls attended the tables and everywhere was the slopping of beer and the stench of the cigarette.
Tom was about to turn away when the sight of a company gathered about a table halted him; and through the smoke his vision leaped and rested upon—Louise. There was a rush, an over-turning of a table, the toppling over of a tipsy man, and Tom stood confronting her. In a loud voice he cried: "What the devil are you doing here?"
She got up and held out her hand, but resentment entered her mind and she drew it back. "What are you doing here?" she replied. "I've as much right here as you have."
"I'll show you about that!" he roared, his anger lifting his voice high above the grumble and the sharp clack of the place. "I'll drag you out!"
Beside her sat a solemnly-respectable man, and up he got and quietly said: "Your language is most insulting, sir."