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Page 3
"Now, Mame, you know," said the man with assumed pathos, "that it is
only because I'm a poor devil that I don't go kerflop the minute I set
eyes on you. But you wouldn't like to live in boxes, would you? Would
you now?"
"Not till my time comes, and not in boxes, then, less I'm in a railroad
accident," replied the girl, with ghastly jocularity.
"She's got another feller, or _you_ might git her if you've got a stiddy
job," the man said, winking at James with familiarity.
"Just my luck," said James. He looked at the girl, and thought her
pretty and pathetic, with a vulgar, almost tragic, prettiness and
pathos. She was an�mic and painfully thin. Her blouse was puffed out
over her flat chest. She looked worn out with the miserable little
tediums of life, with constant stepping over ant-hills of stupidity and
petty hopelessness. Her work was not, comparatively speaking, arduous,
but the serving of hot coffee and frankfurters to workingmen was not
progressive, and she looked as if her principal diet was the left-overs
of the stock in trade. She seemed to exhale an odor of musty sandwiches
and sausages and muddy coffee.
The man swallowed his second cup in fierce gulps. He glanced at his
Ingersoll watch. "Gee whiz!" said he. "It's time I was off! Good-by,
Mame."
The girl turned her head with a toss, and did not reply. "Good-by,"
James said.
The man grinned. "Good-by, Doc," he said. "I'll call you when I git the
measles. You're a good feller. If you'd been a benefactor I'd run you
out."
The man clattered down the steps of the gaudily painted little
structure. The girl whom he had called Mame turned and looked at James
with a sort of innocent boldness. "He's a queer feller," she observed.
"He seems to be."
"He is, you bet. Livin' in a house he's built out of boxes when he makes
big money. He's on strike every little while. I wouldn't look at him.
Don't know what he's drivin' at half the time. Reckon he's--" She
touched her head significantly.
"Lots of folks are," said James affably.
"That's so." She stared reflectively at James. "I'm keepin' this quick
lunch 'cause my father's sick," said she. "I see a lot of human nature
in here."
"I suppose you do."
"You bet. Every kind gits in here first and last, tramps up to swells
who think they're doin' somethin' awful funny to git frankfurters and
coffee in here. They must be hard driv."
"I suppose they are sometimes."
Mame's eyes, surveying James, suddenly grew sharp. "You ain't one?" she
asked accusingly.
"You bet not."
Mame's grew soft. "I knew you were all right," said she. "Sometimes they
say things to me that their fine lady friends would bounce 'em for, but
I knew the minute I saw you that you wasn't that kind if you be dressed
up like a gent. Reckon you've been makin' big money in your last place."
"Considerable," admitted James. He felt like a villain, but he had not
the heart to accuse himself of being a gentleman before this pathetic
girl.
Mame leaned suddenly over the counter, and her blonde crest nearly
touched his forehead. "Say," said she, in a whisper.
"What?" whispered James back.
"What he said ain't true. There ain't a mite of truth in it."
"What he said," repeated James vaguely.
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