s saloon proprietor of Port Willis, which was a city of
saloons. She had herself been nourished on beer, until her naturally
strong will had become so heavy that it clogged her own purposes. Her
absently set face had a bewildered scowl as if at some dimly
comprehended opposition. Carroll surveyed her with a sort of
irritated wonder. No mathematical problem could present for him
difficulties as insuperable as this other human being, who, in a
similar stress to his own, would think of beer instead of chloroform,
and of sleep instead of death--indeed, for whom a similar stress
could not exist, so cushioned was both soul and body with stupidity
and flesh against the pricks and stabs of life.

Beside Carroll sat, sprawling his ungainly sideways length over the
seat, a lank countryman in top-boots red with the earth of the
country roads. His face, lantern-jawed, of the Abraham Lincoln type,
lacking the shrewd intelligence of the trained brain, was painfully
apathetic. He had scarcely looked up when Carroll took his seat
beside him. His lantern jaws worked furtively and incessantly with a
rotary motion over his quid of tobacco, which he chewed with the
humble and rudimentary comfort of an animal over its cud. He was
half-starved on his poor country fare, and the tobacco furnished his
stomach with imagination in lieu of solid food. Now and then he rose
and slouched to the door, and returned. At the other end of the car,
opposite, were two Hungarian women, short, squat, heavily oscillating
as to hips, clad in full, short skirts, aprons, and gay handkerchiefs
over strange faces, at once pitiful, stern, and intimidating. One of
the women was distinctly handsome, with noble features closely framed
by a snow-white kerchief. She had the expression of the pure and
unrelenting asceticism of a nun, but four children nearly of an age
were with her--one a baby in her arms, one asleep with heavy head on
her shoulder, the other two, a boy and girl, sitting on the seat with
their well-shod little feet sticking straight out, and their little
Slav faces, softened by infancy, looked unsmilingly out of the
opposite window. The baby in her lap was also strangely sullen and
solemn, with an intensely repellent little face in a soft, white
hood. The face of the baby looked like an epitome of weary, even
vicious, heredity. He looked older than his mother. Now and then she
bent, and her severe face took on an expression of majestic
tenderness. She pr