"Good night," it said. "You won't, you won't forget?"

He was smiling as he went forth through the long hollow of the arch
to the dim street; the huddled dvornik with his swiveling eyes saw
him, his face lifted to the light of the numbered house-lamp, still
with the shape of a smile inhabiting his lips. The night wind, bitter
from the water, met him as he went, driving through the meagerness of
his clothes, and still he smiled, cherished his mood like a treasure.
And below his mirth, cordial as a testimony of friendship, there
endured the memory of the barren and lifeless room, waiting for its
fulfillment.

In the lodging which he discovered for himself, he lay that night
upon his crackling mattress, hands under his head, smoking a final
cigarette and staring up at the map of stains upon the ceiling. It
had been a day tapestried with sensations; there was much for the
thoughtful mind of a connoisseur of life to dwell upon; but, as he
lay, in that hour of his leisure, the memory that persisted in him
was of the inner door in the dull room where he had drunk tea and
talked with the girl, and all the suggestion and enticement of it. He
wished that for a moment he could have looked beyond it and viewed
just once the delicate and fragrant privacy which it screened. The
outer room had a purpose as plain as a kitchen; the girl in it had
shown him of herself only that purpose; the rest of her was shut from
him.

He pitched the end of his cigarette from him, turning his head to
watch it roll to safety in the middle of the bare floor.

"I'll go after a job in the morning," he said half aloud to the
emptiness of the mean chamber, and turned to sleep upon the
resolution.

It was nearing noon of the next day when, following the trail of that
redeeming job, he went towards the Mathieson yards. While he was yet
afar off he could see between the roofs the cathedral-like
scaffolding clustering around the shape of a ship in the building;
the rapid-fire of the hammers and riveting guns at work upon her,
plates was loud above the noises of the street. But he went slowly;
he had already been some hours upon his quest, and there was a touch
of worry and uncertainty in his face. It seemed that the world he had
known so well had changed its heart. The gatekeeper at the wharves
where he formerly had driven a winch had refused to admit him, and at
the Russian foundry he had been curtly ordered away. Policemen had
hailed him familiarly and