"Great mornin' for a ride. Beth is fit as a circus. I'd better get her ready, hadn't I, sir?"
"God, no!" Charter mumbled. "Help me on with my boots, and pour out a drink. Bring fresh water.... Did Doctor——"
"Didn't question me, sir. Brought what you wanted, and said he'd drop over to see you to-day."
Charter held his mouth for the proffered stimulant, and beckoned the other back.
"Let me sit still for a minute or two. Don't joggle about the room, Bob."
Revulsion quieted, the nausea passed. Bob finished dressing him, and Charter moved abroad. He took the flask with him, lest it be some forgotten holiday and the bars closed. A man who has had such a night as his is slavish for days before the fear of being without. He was pitifully weak, but the stimulus had lifted his mind out of the hells of obsession.
The morning wind had sweetened the streets. Lawns, hedges, vines, and all the greens seemed washed and preened to meet the sun. To one who has hived with demons, there is something so simple and sanative about the restoring night—the rest of healing and health. He could have wept at the virtue of simple goodness—so easy, so vainly sought amid the complications of vanity and desire. Well and clearly he saw now that mild good, undemonstrative, unaggressive good—seventy years of bovine plodding, sunning, grazing, drowsing—is a step toward the Top. What a travesty is genius when it is arraigned by an august morning; men who summon gods to their thinking, yet fail in the simple lessons that dogs and horses and cats have grasped! All the more foul and bestial are those whom gods have touched within; charged with treason of manhood by every good and perfect thing, when they cannot rise and meet the day with clean hearts. Charter would have given all his evolution for the simple decency of his man, Bob, or his mare, Beth.
The crowd of thoughts incensed him, so he hurried.... Dengler was sweeping out his bar. Screen-doors slammed open, and a volume of dust met the early caller as he was about to enter. Dengler didn't drink, and he was properly pleased with the morning. Lafe Schiel, who was scrubbing cuspidors for Dengler, drank. That's why he cleaned cuspidors. Dengler greeted his honored patron effusively.
"Suppose you've been working all night, Mr. Charter. You look a little roughed and tired. You work while we sleep—eh? That's the way with you writer-fellows. I've got a niece that writes. I told you about her. She's ruined her eyes. She says she can get her best thoughts at night. You're all alike."
"Have a little touch, Lafe?" Charter asked, turning to the porter, who wiped his hands on his trousers and stepped forward gratefully.