Quite a place—I saw a sailor come out last night hashed with a knife."
He found the Torquay, a place of brilliant illumination and color, packed with tables about a dancing floor, and small insistent orchestra. He sat against the wall by the entrance, apparently sunk in apathy, but his vision searched the crowd like the cutting bar of light thrown on the intermittent singers. He renewed his order. Toward midnight a fresh influx of people swept in; his search was unsatisfied.
The cigarette girl, pinkly pretty with an exaggerated figure, carrying a wooden tray with her wares, stopped at his gesture.
"Why don't you hang that about your neck with something?" he inquired.
"And get round shouldered!" she demanded. Her manner became confidential. "I do get fierce tired," she admitted; "nine till two-thirty."
He asked for a particular brand of cigarette.
"We haven't got them." She studied him with a memorizing frown. "They are hardly ever asked for; and now—yes, there was a man, last night, I think"
"He must have made an impression."
"Another move and I'd slapped him if I lost my job. They got to be some fresh when they disturb me, too."
"Alone, then?"
"That's right. Wanted me to meet him, and showed me a roll of money. Me!" her contempt sharpened.
"He was young?"
"Young nothing, with gray in his shoebrush mustache."
By such small things, Lemuel Doret reflected, the fresh-
