FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88  
89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   >>   >|  
-house with the other man and said to himself as he crossed the door-sill-- "Little cousin! you don't know what 'serious' money this is!" CHAPTER II A girl who he judged by her frowzled hair and her heavy eyes had just been aroused from sleep, stood behind the counter pouring hot and steaming coffee into thick china cups. The smell to the hungry man was divine. Fairfax's mouth watered. From the one pot the coffee came out with milk added, and from another the liquid poured clear. Fairfax asked for coffee with milk and a sandwich, and as the girl pushed the plate with hunks of bread and ham towards him, he asked, "How much, please?" The girl raised her heavy lids. Her gray eyes could have sparkled if she had been less sleepy. She glanced at him and responded in a soft brogue-- "Two cints a cup. Sandwiches two cints apiece." He took his breakfast over to the table where a customer was already seated before a huge breakfast. After watching Fairfax for a few moments, this man said to him-- "Got a rattling good appetite, Mister." "I have, indeed," Fairfax returned, "and I'm going to begin over again." The man wore a red shirt under his coat, his battered bowler was a-cock on his head. Antony often recalled Sanders as he looked that morning. His face from his neck up was clean. He exuded water and brown soap; he had a bright healthy colour; he was a good-looking workman, but his hands! Fairfax thought them appalling--grimed with coal. They could never be washed clean, Fairfax reflected, and one finger on the left hand was missing. "Stranger?" the man asked him. "Just going through?" And as Fairfax replied, he thought to himself, "He doesn't dream _how_ strange I am and that I don't even know the name of the town." He asked the man, "Much going on here?" "Yards. Up here in West Albany it's nothing but yards and railroading." "Ah," nodded Fairfax, and to himself: "This is the capital of New York State--_Albany_--that's where I am." And it was not far enough away to please him. The man's breakfast, which had been fed into him by his knife, was disposed of, and he went on-- "Good steady employment; they're decent to you. Have to be, good men are scarce." A tall, well-set-up engineer came to the coffee counter, and Fairfax's companion called out to him-- "Got your new fireman yet, Joe?" And the other, with a cheerful string of oaths, responded that he had not got him, and that he
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88  
89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Fairfax

 

coffee

 

breakfast

 
thought
 
responded
 

Albany

 
counter
 

grimed

 

appalling

 

steady


washed
 

reflected

 

fireman

 

finger

 

exuded

 
morning
 

workman

 

cheerful

 

missing

 
colour

string

 
bright
 

healthy

 

looked

 

Stranger

 

railroading

 

scarce

 
nodded
 

employment

 

capital


Sanders

 

decent

 

disposed

 

engineer

 

replied

 

companion

 

called

 

strange

 

watered

 

divine


hungry

 

liquid

 

poured

 

sandwich

 

pushed

 

steaming

 
CHAPTER
 

cousin

 

Little

 

crossed