"Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night."
Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Café, with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away.
The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?"
"Why yes. Is there another?"
"Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up."
"The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel."
"Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?"
"Three dollars."
"Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane—nobody knows why—guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy."
"But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?"