Tom Bassett gazed at him with a wearied air and resignedly waved a hand to his companions.
“Who is he, men?” he asked.
As one man, six of them took pipes out of their mouths, lowered their feet from the guard-rail of the stove, and spat toward the damper.
“Jose Cantine!” they chorused. Immediately their feet went up to the guard-rail again, and their pipes went back to their mouths.
“And about the woman!” Bassett paused and scanned the throng of dancers. “Where’s White-Pass-City Winnie?” he asked. “Ain’t she here tonight? I thought I seen her yeller dress somewhar. Oh, she’s at the back, eh? Well, trot her forrard.”
The throng shifted, leaving an irregular lane in its center.
Through this lane a fresh-faced girl of twenty-four or -five pushed from the rear, the rustle of her canary-satin dress and the tap-tap of her dainty pumps falling with strange distinctness across the silence of the Saxon.
“Winnie, shake hands with an old friend of yours!” yawned Bassett.
White-Pass-City Winnie gave one swift, curious glance at the woman by the stove and recoiled, her nose in the air.
“Me? Shake with Blera Sark? Not much! And if I’d shamed as good a man as Eric Sark for a cur like Jose Cantine I’d spare my old friends the sight of my face!”