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At long intervals he uttered a sound, half word, half cry, "Wolf wolf!" but it was muffled, indistinct, raucous, coming more from his throat than from his lips. It might easily have been the growl of an animal. A long time passed. Naked, four-footed, Vandover ran back and forth the length of the room.
"Say, Ida," interrupted Vandover at length, "I'm pretty hungry. Can't we go somewhere and eat something? I'd like a Welsh rabbit." "All right," she answered. "Where do you want to go?" "Well," replied Vandover, running over in his mind the places he might reach by unfrequented streets. "There's Marchand's or Tortoni's or the Poodle Dog." "Suits me," she answered, "any one you like.
Geary cried out, "Cæsar's ghost!" and Vandover swore under his breath. "If that isn't the strangest thing I ever saw!" cried Turner. "Isn't that funny why oh! I'm going to try it with another glass!" But the second glass remained intact. Geary recovered from his surprise and tried to explain how it could happen.
"The Mazatlan!" exclaimed Toby. "That's a fact; the papers have been full of it. That's so, you were one of the survivors." "The survivors!" echoed Vandover with wondering curiosity. "Tell me you know I haven't heard a word yet were there many lives lost?" He marvelled at the strangeness of the situation, that this bar waiter should know more of the wreck than he himself who had been upon it.
But there was his name staring back at him from out the gray blur of the type, like some reflection of himself seen in a mirror. Insignificant as the paragraph was, it seemed to Vandover as though it was the only item in the whole paper. One might as well have trumpeted his crime through the streets. "But twenty-five thousand dollars!" exclaimed Vandover, terrified.
"Why, don't you see you would be doing me a favour?" said Vandover wearily. "I ask you to buy the block. I don't care what your figure is!" Once more Geary hesitated, for the last time going over the whole deal in his mind from beginning to end, testing it, looking for weak points. It was almost perfect. Suppose the boot and shoe people did not buy the lot?
As the couple passed they stared calmly at the two young fellows in the window; Vandover lowered his eyes over his work, blushing, he could not tell why. Geary stared back at them, following them with his eyes until they had gone by. All at once he began laughing and pounding on the window.
"Oh, I don't know," said Vandover after a while, as he settled to his drawing. "She was pretty common, but anyhow I don't want to help bring down a poor girl like that any lower than she is already." This saying struck Vandover as being very good and noble, and he found occasion to repeat it to young Haight the next day.
He thought that he was bearing up under the strain well enough, but on the evening of the second day, as he was pretending to eat his supper, his father sent the servant out and turning to him, said kindly: "What is it, Van? Aren't you well nowadays?" "Not very, sir," answered Vandover. "My throat is troubling me again." "You look deathly pale," returned his father.
After leaving Vandover that afternoon Ellis had seen the head waiter of this restaurant and had explained to him the bill of fare that Vandover, the Dummy, and himself had arranged during their lunch at the Lick House. The streets had relapsed into a momentary quiet it was between half-past six and seven and most of the college men were gathered into the hotels and cafés eating dinner.
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