im. Even better than eating would be the
satisfaction of knowing that he had shown himself stronger than his
lower animal appetite. No; he would not give in.

Hardly a minute after he had arrived at this resolution Vandover found
himself drawing on his coat and shoes making ready to go out--to go out
and eat.

The gas in the room was lit, his money, the nickel and the two dimes,
was shut in one of his fists. He was dressing himself with one hand,
dressing with feverish, precipitate haste. What had happened? He
marvelled at himself, but did not check his preparations an instant. He
could not stop, whether he would or no; there was something in him
stronger than himself, something that urged him on his feet, that drove
him out into the street, something that clamoured for food and that
would not be gainsaid. It was the animal in him, the brute, that would
be fed, the evil, hideous brute grown now so strong that Vandover could
not longer resist it--the brute that had long since destroyed all his
finer qualities but that still demanded to be fed, still demanded to
live. All the little money that Vandover had saved during the day he
spent that night among the coffee houses, the restaurants, and the
saloons of the Barbary Coast, continuing to eat even after his hunger
was satisfied. Toward daylight he returned to his room, and all dressed
as he was flung himself face downward among the coarse blankets and
greasy counterpane. For nearly eight hours he slept profoundly, with
long snores, prone, inert, crammed and gorged with food.

It was the middle of Sunday afternoon when he awoke. He roused himself
and going over to the Plaza sat for a long while upon one of the
benches. It was a very bright afternoon and Vandover sat motionless for
a long time in the sun while his heavy meal digested, very happy,
content merely to be warm, to be well fed, to be comfortable.

Chapter Eighteen

That winter passed, then the summer; September and October came and
went, and by the middle of November the rains set in. One very wet
afternoon toward the end of the month Charlie Geary sat at his desk in
his own private office. He was unoccupied for the moment, leaning back
in his swivel chair, his feet on the table, smoking a cigar. Geary had
broken from his old-time habit of smoking only so many cigars as he
could pay for by saving carfare. He was doing so well now that he could
afford to smoke whenever he chose. He was still with the