t
thickened into early winter dusk before his train came and he got off to
Boston. In the meantime the electrics came out like sudden moons, and
shed a lunar ray over the region round about the station, where a young
man, who was in the habit of describing himself in print as "one of _The
Boston Events_' young men," found his way into an eating-house not far
from the track. It had a simple, domestic effect inside, and the young
man gave a sigh of comfort in the pleasant warmth and light. There was a
woman there who had a very conversable air, a sort of eventual
sociability, as the young man realized when she looked up from twitching
the white, clean cloths perfectly straight on the little tables set in
rows on either side of the room.

She finally reached the table where the young man had taken a chair for
his overcoat and hat, and was about taking another for himself.

"Well," he said, "let's see. No use asking if you've got coffee?" He
inhaled the odor of it coming from the open door of another room, with a
deep breath.

"Baked beans?"

"Yes."

"Well, I don't think there's anything much better than baked beans. Do
you?"

"Well, not when you git 'em _good_," the woman admitted. "_Ril_ good."

"And what's the matter with a piece of mince pie?"

"I don't see's there's any great deal. Hot?"

"Every time."

"I _thought_ so," said the woman. "We have it both ways, but I'd as soon
eat a piece of I don't know what as a piece o' _cold_ mince pie."

"We have mince pie right along at our house," said the young man. "But I
guess if I was to eat a piece of it cold, my wife would have the doctor
round inside of five minutes."

The woman laughed as if for joy in the hot mince-pie fellowship
established between herself and the young man. "Well, I guess she need
to. Nothin' else you want?" She brought the beans and coffee, with a hot
plate, and a Japanese paper napkin, and she said, as she arranged them
on the table before the young man, "Your pie's warmin' for you; I got
you some rolls; they're just right out the oven; and here's some the
best butter I ever put a knife to, if I _do_ say so. It's just as good
and sweet as butter can be, if it _didn't_ come from the Northwick place
at a dollar a pound."

"Well, now, I should have thought you'd have used the Northwick butter,"
said the young man with friendly irony.

"You know the Northwick butter?" said the woman, charmed at the
discovery of another tie.

"Well, my