"It's all very well--this wonderful compact of ours," Curtis grumbled,
"but I'm deuced hungry, and Matt and I haven't a cent between us. As
we went all that way last night to oblige you, Leon, I think it is
only fair you should stand us treat. I'll bet you have some nickels
stowed away, somewhere, in those pockets of yours--it wouldn't be you
if you hadn't! What do you say, Matt?"
"I think as you do," Kelson replied. "We've stood by Leon, he should
stand by us. How much have you, Leon?"
"How much have you?" Curtis echoed, "come, out with it--no jew-jewing
pals for me."
"I might manage a dollar," Hamar said ruefully, as the prospect of a
good meal all to himself, at his favourite restaurant, faded away.
"Where shall we go?"
Just then, Kelson, happening to look behind him, saw a young woman of
prepossessing appearance ascending the steps of a dive in Clay Street.
He was instantly attracted, as he always was attracted by a pretty
woman, and something--a kind of intuition he had never had
before--told him that she was a waitress; that she was discontented
with her present situation; that she was engaged to be married to a
pen driver at Hastings & Hastings in Sacramento Street; and that she
had a mother, of over seventy, whom she kept. All this came to Kelson
like a flash of lightning.
Yielding to an impulse which he did not stay to analyse, he gripped
Hamar and Curtis, each too astonished even to remonstrate, by the arm,
and, dragging them along with him, followed the girl.
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