“How long have I been here?” he inquired, as if surprised at his surroundings and the complaisant mood in which he found himself. Then his eyes fell upon the glasses and he nodded his head as much as to say, “I see it all now.”
“You came with me from in front of the green door,” I replied.
“What does the green door signify?”
“Supper,” he answered, “supper for all who stand in the line at eight o’clock and are sober.”
“A good Samaritan on Bourke street, a Christian in a new quarter and in a strange guise.”
“That depends upon your standpoint of view,” murmured my companion. “The man conducts, side by side, a drinking place and the restaurant. In the restaurant, every night for half an hour he cares for some of the finished product turned out by his other establishment.”
“Has he turned you out as finished?”
“I never drink,” he said, a trace of hauteur coming into his manner.
“Worse,” said I, pointing to the glasses.
“My last remaining friend,” was his reply, and he raised the third glass to his lips and drank it off with the dignity of a gentleman of the old school. He brushed back his tangled hair with a nervous energy, his very presence grew upon me, then he unpinned and threw back his coat exposing his bare chest, for he wore no shirt, arose and paced the room with a decided step which betokened a man used to command. The homeless beggar had vanished and in his stead stood God’s noblest work.