ences to
which we say we are indifferent. What matter is it if he _does_ arrest
me? I should at least have a cup of coffee at the station house."
On either side of the alley through which Fairfax now walked there was
not a friendly door open, or a shutter flung back from a window. At the
head of the street Fairfax stopped and looked back upon the yards and
the tracks of the workshops. The ugly scene lay in the mist of very
early morning and the increasing daylight made its crudeness each moment
more apparent. As he stood alone in Nut Street, on either side of him
hundreds of sleeping workmen, the sun rose over the yards, filling the
dreary, unlovely outlook with a pure glory. To Fairfax's senses it
brought no consolation but the sharp suffering that any beauty brings to
the poet and the seer. It was a new day--he was too young to be crushed
out of life because he had an empty pocket, and faint as he was, hungry
as he was, the visions began to rise again in his brain. The crimson
glory, as it swam over the railroad yards, over the bridge, over the
unsightly buildings, was peopled by his ideals--his breath came fast and
his heart beat. The clouds from which the sun emerged took winged
shapes and soared; the power of the iron creatures in the shed seemed to
invigorate him. Fairfax drew a deep breath and murmured: "Art has made
many victims. I won't sacrifice my life to it." And he seemed a coward
to himself to be beaten so early in the race.
"Muscles of iron and a heart of steel," he murmured again, "_a heart of
steel_."
He turned on his feet and limped on, and as he walked he saw a light in
an opposite window with the early opening of a cheap restaurant. The
shutters on either side of Nut Street were flung back. He heard the
clattering of feet, doors were pushed open and the workers began to
drift out into the day. Antony made for the light in the coffee house;
it was extinguished before he arrived and the growing daylight took its
place. A man from a lodging-house passed in at the restaurant door.
Fairfax's hands were deep in the pockets of his overcoat, his fingers
touched a loose button. He turned it, but it did not feel like a button.
He drew it out; it was twenty-five cents. He had not shaken out quite
all the children's coins on the hall floor. This bit of silver had
caught between the lining and the cloth and resisted his angry fling. As
the young man looked at it, his face softened. He went into the
eating
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