colorful thronging city built on sand and the rim of the sea. It was best to avoid if possible even a casual inquiry, and Bowman had spoken of Atlantic City. The afternoon was hot and bright, the beach was still dotted with groups of bathers; and Lemuel Doret found an inconspicuous place in a row of swing chairs protected by an awning . . . where he waited for evening. Below him a young woman lay contentedly with her head in a youth's lap; a child in a red scrap of bathing suit dug sturdily with an ineffectual tin spade.
The day declined, the water darkened and the groups vanished from the beach. An attendant was stacking the swing chairs, and Lemuel Doret left his place. The boardwalk, elevated above him, was filled with a gay multitude, subdued by the early twilight and the brightening lemon-yellow radiance of the strung globes. Drifting, with only his gaze alert, in the scented mob, he stopped at an unremarkable lunch room for coffee, and afterward turned down a side avenue to where some automobiles waited at the curb. A driver moved from his seat as Lemuel approached, but after a closer inspection the former's interest died.
Doret lighted a cigarette. "How are they hitting you?" he asked negligently.
"Bad; but the season ain't opened up right yet. It'll have to soon, though, if they want me; gas has gone to where it's like shoving champagne into your car."
"The cafés doing anything?"
"None except the Torquay; but the cabaret they got takes all the profits. That's on the front. Then there's the World, back of the town. It's colored, but white go.
