n unrecognizable ball, lay under a table. From an
overturned bottle the dregs were dripping drearily. The air was stale,
stifling, poisonous.

At a little table in the center of the room Henri's three were still
drinking. They were doing it in a dreadful and businesslike way. There
were two men and one woman. The faces of all three were mahogany colored
and expressionless. There was about them an awful sort of stillness.
Something in the sight seemed to sicken Gussie Fink. It came to her that
the wintry air outdoors must be gloriously sweet, and cool, and clean in
contrast to this. She was about to turn away, with a last look at Heiny
yawning behind his hand, when suddenly the woman rose unsteadily to her
feet, balancing herself with her finger tips on the table. She raised
her head and stared across the room with dull, unseeing eyes, and licked
her lips with her tongue. Then she turned and walked half a dozen paces,
screamed once with horrible shrillness, and crashed to the floor. She
lay there in a still, crumpled heap, the folds of her exquisite gown
rippling to meet a little stale pool of wine that had splashed from some
broken glass. Then this happened. Three people ran toward the woman on
the floor, and two people ran past her and out of the room. The two who
ran away were the men with whom she had been drinking, and they were not
seen again. The three who ran toward her were Henri, the waiter, Miss
Gussie Fink, checker, and Tillie, the scrub-woman. Henri and Miss Fink
reached her first. Tillie, the scrub-woman, was a close third. Miss
Gussie Fink made as though to slip her arm under the poor bruised head,
but Henri caught her wrist fiercely (for a waiter) and pulled her to her
feet almost roughly.

"You leave her alone, Kid," he commanded.

Miss Gussie Fink stared, indignation choking her utterance. And as she
stared the fierce light in Henri's eyes was replaced by the light of
tenderness.

"We'll tend to her," said Henri; "she ain't fit for you to touch. I
wouldn't let you soil your hands on such truck." And while Gussie still
stared he grasped the unconscious woman by the shoulders, while another
waiter grasped her ankles, with Tillie, the scrub-woman, arranging her
draperies pityingly around her, and together they carried her out of the
dining-room to a room beyond.

Back in the kitchen Miss Gussie Fink was preparing to don her hat, but
she was experiencing some difficulty because of