hat can poach an egg," said the restaurant
man. "And it isn't every egg that can be poached. Now, my
eggs are the real thing. And I can poach 'em so you'd think
they was done with one of them poaching machines. I don't have
'em with the yellow on a slab of white. I do it so that the
white's all round the yellow, like in the shell. And I keep
'em tender, too. Did you say one egg or a pair?"

"Two," said Susan.

The dishes were thick, but clean and whole. The hash--"dry but
not too dry, brown but not too brown"--was artistically
arranged on its platter, and the two eggs that adorned its top
were precisely as he had promised. The coffee, boiled with the
milk, was real coffee, too. When the restaurant man had set
these things before her, as she sat expectant on a stool, he
viewed his handiwork with admiring eyes.

"Delmonico couldn't beat it," said he. "No, nor Oscar,
neither. That'll take the tired look out of your face, lady,
and bring the beauty back."

Susan ate slowly, listening to the music of the beating rain.
It was like an oasis, a restful halt between two stretches of
desert journey; she wished to make it as long as possible.
Only those who live exposed to life's buffetings ever learn to
enjoy to the full the great little pleasures of life--the
halcyon pauses in the storms--the few bright rays through the
break in the clouds, the joy of food after hunger, of a bath
after days of privation, of a jest or a smiling face or a kind
word or deed after darkness and bitterness and contempt. She saw
the restaurant man's eyes on her, a curious expression in them.

"What's the matter?" she inquired.

"I was thinking," said he, "how miserable you must have been to
be so happy now."

"Oh, I guess none of us has any too easy a time," said she.

"But it's mighty hard on women. I used to think different,
before I had bad luck and got down to tending this lunch wagon.
But now I understand about a lot of things. It's all very well
for comfortable people to talk about what a man or a woman
ought to do and oughtn't to do. But let 'em be slammed up
against it. They'd sing a different song--wouldn't they?"

"Quite different," said Susan.

The man waved a griddle spoon. "I tell you, we do what we've
got to do. Yes--the thieves and--and--all of us. Some's used
for foundations and some for roofing and some for inside fancy
work and some for outside wall. And some's used for the
rubbish heap. But all's