A fire began to burn in his eyes
and the fists that were thrust into his coat pockets were clenched.
Again as when he was a boy in Coal Creek he hated the people. The fine
love of mankind that had its basis in a dream of mankind galvanised by
some great passion into order and meaning was lost.
In the restaurant after midnight trade briskened Waiters and
bartenders from fashionable restaurants of the loop district began to
drop in to meet friends from among the women of the town. When a woman
came in she walked up to one of these young men. "What kind of a night
have you had?" they asked each other.
The visiting waiters stood about and talked in low tones. As they
talked they absentmindedly practised the art of withholding money from
customers, a source of income to them. They played with coins, pitched
them into the air, palmed them, made them appear and disappear with
marvellous rapidity. Some of them sat on stools along the counter
eating pie and drinking cups of hot coffee.
A cook clad in a long dirty apron came into the room from the kitchen
and putting a dish on the counter stood eating its contents. He tried
to win the admiration of the idlers by boasting. In a blustering voice
he called familiarly to women seated at tables along the wall.
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