hotel
guests slept, the two laundrymen sweated on at "fancy starch" till
midnight, till one, till two. At half-past two they knocked off.

Saturday morning it was "fancy starch," and odds and ends, and at three
in the afternoon the week's work was done.

"You ain't a-goin' to ride them seventy miles into Oakland on top of
this?" Joe demanded, as they sat on the stairs and took a triumphant
smoke.

"Got to," was the answer.

"What are you goin' for?--a girl?"

"No; to save two and a half on the railroad ticket. I want to renew some
books at the library."

"Why don't you send 'em down an' up by express? That'll cost only a
quarter each way."

Martin considered it.

"An' take a rest to-morrow," the other urged. "You need it. I know I
do. I'm plumb tuckered out."

He looked it. Indomitable, never resting, fighting for seconds and
minutes all week, circumventing delays and crushing down obstacles, a
fount of resistless energy, a high-driven human motor, a demon for work,
now that he had accomplished the week's task he was in a state of
collapse. He was worn and haggard, and his handsome face drooped in lean
exhaustion. He pulled his cigarette spiritlessly, and his voice was
peculiarly dead and monotonous. All the snap and fire had gone out of
him. His triumph seemed a sorry one.

"An' next week we got to do it all over again," he said sadly. "An'
what's the good of it all, hey? Sometimes I wish I was a hobo. They
don't work, an' they get their livin'. Gee! I wish I had a glass of
beer; but I can't get up the gumption to go down to the village an' get
it. You'll stay over, an' send your books dawn by express, or else
you're a damn fool."

"But what can I do here all day Sunday?" Martin asked.

"Rest. You don't know how tired you are. Why, I'm that tired Sunday I
can't even read the papers. I was sick once--typhoid. In the hospital
two months an' a half. Didn't do a tap of work all that time. It was
beautiful."

"It was beautiful," he repeated dreamily, a minute later.

Martin took a bath, after which he found that the head laundryman had
disappeared. Most likely he had gone for a glass of beer Martin decided,
but the half-mile walk down to the village to find out seemed a long
journey to him. He lay on his bed with his shoes off, trying to make up
his mind. He did not reach out for a book. He was too tired to feel
sleepy, and he lay, scarcely thinking, in a semi-stupor of wearines