characteristic cold, penetrating taxi man's stare when he was being paid that shamed patrons into handing out twenty-five cent largesses. He took them as they came, and thanked them. He enjoyed his jobs. Jolting around the New York streets in the open air, with the whole busy panorama of the city before him, was fun. People began announcing restaurants as their destination and, after dropping two chattering debutantes at Pierre's, Speedy discovered that he was hungry. He sought out a beanery on Sixth Avenue and parked his car outside. He bought a paper on the corner and walked in to the busy, aromatic depths of the hash house.
Several other taxi drivers were already occupying the chairs against the wall, chairs with one swollen arm on which steaming beans and coffee rested. Speedy ordered ham and eggs and coffee, bore his spoils to an unoccupied chair and looked around to see if he could find Dan Ryan. Dan had recommended this restaurant to him and said he would have lunch with him if he happened to be in the neighborhood. Evidently business had taken him elsewhere.
Speedy spread out his paper and started to read, dipping a fork into his repast as he did so. He was half-conscious of the hoarse-voiced talk around him.
"—so I said, 'Listen, if I drive you to Stamford I've got to be paid in advance. But if you ask me, I'll say I better take you to the Commodore and dump you there for the night.' And he says, 'Well, driver, use your own judgment.' So I takes him to the Commodore and gets him a room and he says,
