nd he would pour forth to her the story of his long
unuttered love. And then--but beyond this Sam could not think. And
never yet had he dared go into the dining hall and sit alone, though it
was openly rumoured that such had been the ruse of Curly with the
"littlest waiter girl," before Curly had gone north on the Wyoming
trail.

Accident sometimes accomplishes that which design fails to compass.
One day Sam was detained with a customer much later than his usual
dinner hour. Indeed, Sam had not been to dinner at the hotel for many
days, a fact which the district physician at the railway might have
explained. "Of course," said Sam, "I done the drivin', an' maybe that
was why I got froze some more than Cap Franklin did, when we went down
south that day." Frozen he had been, so that two of his fingers were
now gone at the second joint, a part of his right ear was trimmed of
unnecessary tissue, and his right cheek remained red and seared with
the blister of the cold endured on that drive over the desolated land.
It was a crippled and still more timid Sam who, unwittingly very late,
halted that day at the door of the dining-room and gazed within. At
the door there came over him a wave of recollection. It seemed to him
all at once that he was, by reason of his afflictions, set still
further without the pale of any possible regard. He dodged to his
table and sat down without a look at any of his neighbours. To him it
seemed that Nora regarded him with yet more visible scornfulness.
Could he have sunk beneath the board he would have done so. Naught but
hunger made him bold, for he had lived long at his barn on sardines,
cheese, and crackers.

One by one the guests at the tables rose and left the room, and one by
one the waiter girls followed them. The dining hour was nearly over.
The girls would go upstairs for a brief season of rest before changing
their checked gingham mid-day uniform for the black gown and white
apron which constituted the regalia for the evening meal, known, of
course, as "supper." Sam, absorbed in his own misery and his own
hunger, awoke with a start to find the great hall apparently quite
deserted.

It is the curious faculty of some men (whereby scientists refer us to
the ape) that they are able at will to work back and forth the scalp
upon the skull. Yet other and perhaps fewer men retain the ability to
work either or both ears, moving them back and forth voluntarily. It
was Sam's solit