“Ugh!” Will’s lips made a little grunting noise as he read Kate’s words. He was sitting in a chair, in his oily overalls, and where his fingers gripped the white sheets of the letter there was a little oily smudge. Also his hand trembled a little. He got up, poured water out of a pitcher into a white bowl, and began washing his face and hands.
When he had partly dressed a visitor came. There was the shuffling sound of weary feet along a hallway, and the cornet player put his head timidly in at the door. The dog-like appealing look Will had noted on the train was still in his eyes. Now he was planning something, a kind of gentle revolt against his wife’s power in the house, and he wanted Will’s moral support.
For a week he had been coming for talk to Will’s room almost every evening. There were two things he wanted. In the evening sometimes, as he sat in his room, he wanted to blow upon his cornet, and he wanted a little money to jingle in his pockets.
And there was a sense in which Will, the newcomer in the house, was his property, did not belong to his wife. Often in the evenings he had talked to the weary and sleepy young workman, until Will’s eyes had closed and he snored gently. The old man sat on the one chair in the room, and Will sat on the edge of the bed, while old lips told the tale of a lost youth, boasted a little. When Will’s body had slumped down upon the bed the old man got to his feet and moved with cat-like steps about the room. One mustn’t raise the voice too loudly after all. Had Will gone to sleep? The cornet player threw his shoulders back and bold words came, in a halfwhisper, from his lips. To tell the truth, he had been a fool about the money he had made over to his wife and, if his wife had taken advantage of him, it wasn’t her fault. For his present position in life he had no one to blame but himself. What from the very beginning he had most lacked was boldness. It was a man’s duty to be a man and, for a long time, he had been thinking—well, the boarding house no doubt made a profit and he should have his share. His wife was a good girl all right, but when one came right down to it, all women seemed to lack a sense of a man’s position in life.
“I’ll have to speak to her—yes siree, I’m going to speak right up to her. I may have to be a little harsh but it’s my money runs this house, and I want my share of the profits. No foolishness now. Shell out, I tell you,” the old man whispered, peering out of the corners of his blue, watery eyes at the sleeping form of the young man on the bed.
And now again the old man stood at the door of the room, looking anxiously in. A bell called insistently, announcing that the evening meal was ready to be served, and they went below, Will leading the way. At a long table in the dining room several men had already gathered, and there was the sound of more footsteps on the stairs.
Two long rows of young workmen eating silently. Saturday night and two long rows of young workmen eating in silence.
After the eating, and on this particular night, there would be a swift flight of all these young men down into the town, down into the lighted parts of the town.
Will sat at his place gripping the sides of his chair.