lain were lost to sight. "Hallo!" said the service
man quickly, "we must get on--" He looked again, shrewdly, toward the
old man in the dusk. "You couldn't find a drop of anything, handy--to
give away--Jimmie?" he suggested.

The old man tottered a slow smile at him and moved toward the house.
He came back with a long-necked bottle grasped tight, and a couple of
glasses that he filled in the dimness.

The service man held up his glass with quick gesture--"Here's to you,
Jimmie!" he said, throwing back his head. "May you live long, and
prosper!" He gulped it down.

The old man's toothless smile received the empty glasses; and when the
two machines had trundled away in the dimness, it stood looking after
them--the deep smile of guileless, crafty old age--that suffers and
waits--and clutches its morsel at last and fastens on it--without joy,
and without shame.

XXVIII

INSIDE THE LITTLE HOUSE

The two figures amid the rows of the marked garden paused, in the
enveloping dusk, and leaned on their hoes, and listened--a low, peevish
whistle, like the call of a night-jar, on the plain, came to them.
Presently the call repeated itself--three wavering notes--and they
shouldered their hoes and moved toward the little house.

The old man emerged from the gloom, coming toward them. "What was it?"
asked one of the figures quickly.

The old man chuckled. "Stole a racer--that's about all _they_
knew--_you_ got off easy!" He was peering toward them.

The larger of the two figures straightened itself. "I am sick of it--I
tell you!--my back's broke!" He moved himself in the dusk, stretching
out his great arms and looking about him vaguely.

The old man eyed him shrewdly. "You're earning a good pile," he said.

"Yes, one-seventy-five a day!" The man laughed a little.

The other man had not spoken. He slipped forward through the dusk.
"Supper ready?" he asked.

They followed him into the house, stopping in an entry to wash their
hands and remove their heavy shoes. Through the door opening to a room
beyond, a woman could be seen, moving briskly, and the smell of cooking
floated out. They sniffed at it hungrily.

The woman came to the door. "Hurry up, boys--everything's done to
death!"

They came in hastily, with half-dried hands, and she looked at them--a
laugh in her round, keen face. "You _have_ had a day!" she said. She
was tall and angular, and her face had a sudden roundness--a kind of
motherly, Dutch doll, set