Porter took a chair and looked out of the window. For a moment he was too weary to be aggressive. Worry and loss of sleep had lined his face, and the absence of news from McNally kept his nerves strung. As he sat there gripping the arms of the chair, face a little flushed, hair disarranged, collar dusty, he looked ten years past his age. It was a critical moment in the fight, and he knew it, but cornered as he was, absolutely uninformed as to his position in the struggle, or the meaning of the military display, a sense of helplessness almost unnerved him. Heretofore his fights had been largely conducted through deferential employees. He was accustomed to bows and scrapes, to men who feared him, who watched his every move in awe, and to find himself utterly at the mercy of these tin soldiers was disgusting. It was twenty-four hours since he had had a wink of sleep and eighteen since he had eaten a full meal—facts which in no small measure lessened the stability of his mental poise. And there he sat waiting through the darkness and the dawn.
The reds and golds in the eastern sky spread and paled. The little green-clad city stretched down the gentle hill, now indistinct in the haze. An early electric car whirred and jangled past the station, and Porter was half conscious of the noise. He got up, straightened his stiff joints, and went to the lunch counter, where he had to jostle between two gawky privates before he could order a cup of smoky cereal coffee and a sandwich. After getting a place he could not eat, so he returned to the office. Now that some sort of routine was established, the Captain showed a willingness to meet him civilly.
“See here,” said Porter, after a few commonplaces had been exchanged, “how long is this going to keep up? There is no sense in holding me here.”
“Sorry, sir. I have no desire to inconvenience you, but my orders are to let no one out and no one in. And you know what orders are for.”
“Oh, that's all right,”—Porter leaned back in his chair and looked out the window,—“but there's such a thing as going to extremes. Sometimes common sense supersedes orders.”
“You forget, Mr. Porter, that you are here for the purpose of conducting a raid, and we are here to stop that raid. Under the circumstances it is my duty to hold you and every one connected with the affair until I am otherwise ordered.”
“But I am not a thief, man.”
“No, perhaps not.” The Captain turned to some papers on the desk, and Porter continued to look out, wearily, with a sudden dull ache above his eyes.
A corporal appeared in the doorway, saluting.
“There's a young lady, sir, says she's got to see Mr. Porter.”