There was only one break in the dreary monotony of that month: when
Blind d'Arnault, the Negro pianist, came to town. He gave a concert at
the Opera House on Monday night, and he and his manager spent Saturday
and Sunday at our comfortable hotel. Mrs. Harling had known d'Arnault
for years. She told Antonia she had better go to see Tiny that Saturday
evening, as there would certainly be music at the Boys' Home.

Saturday night after supper I ran downtown to the hotel and slipped
quietly into the parlour. The chairs and sofas were already occupied,
and the air smelled pleasantly of cigar smoke. The parlour had once been
two rooms, and the floor was swaybacked where the partition had been cut
away. The wind from without made waves in the long carpet. A coal stove
glowed at either end of the room, and the grand piano in the middle
stood open.

There was an atmosphere of unusual freedom about the house that night,
for Mrs. Gardener had gone to Omaha for a week. Johnnie had been having
drinks with the guests until he was rather absent-minded. It was Mrs.
Gardener who ran the business and looked after everything. Her husband
stood at the desk and welcomed incoming travellers. He was a popular
fellow, but no manager.

Mrs. Gardener was admittedly the best-dressed woman in Black Hawk, drove
the best horse, and had a smart trap and a little white-and-gold sleigh.
She seemed indifferent to her possessions, was not half so solicitous
about them as her friends were. She was tall, dark, severe, with
something Indian-like in the rigid immobility of her face. Her manner
was cold, and she talked little. Guests felt that they were receiving,
not conferring, a favour when they stayed at her house. Even the
smartest travelling men were flattered when Mrs. Gardener stopped to
chat with them for a moment. The patrons of the hotel were divided into
two classes: those who had seen Mrs. Gardener's diamonds, and those who
had not.

When I stole into the parlour, Anson Kirkpatrick, Marshall Field's man,
was at the piano, playing airs from a musical comedy then running in
Chicago. He was a dapper little Irishman, very vain, homely as a monkey,
with friends everywhere, and a sweetheart in every port, like a sailor.
I did not know all the men who were sitting about, but I recognized a
furniture salesman from Kansas City, a drug man, and Willy O'Reilly, who
travelled for a jewellery house and sold musical instruments. The talk
was all about good