And thus they proceeded with question and answer until, as by a miracle, they stood before the door of the house they sought.
"You live here?" asked Finch, politely.
"Yes. . . . You live here, too?"
"No. I live in ole house named Jalna."
"Oh. . . . Well, goo'-bye."
"Goo'-bye. See you later."
They parted, and Finch on the next street took a taxi and drove to the station. During the ride he kept his face pressed to the window, observing with drunken interest the streets through which they passed.
There was only a short wait until the early morning train left. The conductor on this train did not know Finch, but he had a fatherly eye on him, and awoke him from his heavy sleep before they reached the station at Weddels', and saw him safely to the platform.
Out here in the open, the sunshine poured down in an unobstructed flood. The sun was climbing the clear blue sky, his springtime ardour unabashed by the snowfall of the night before. The snow, in truth, was now nothing more than a thin white garment on the earth. The earth was casting it aside and pushing up her bare brown bosom to the sun. She was straining her body toward him to absorb his heat.
In the ditches, bright runnels of water were gurgling. The bare limbs of the trees shone as though they had been varnished. A rut in the road made a bathtub for a little bird. He agitated his brown wings joyously and sent up a cascade of sparkling drops.
Finch splashed through the melting slush, his face heavy and flushed, his hair plastered over his forehead. Two farmers in a waggon, passing him, remarked that that young Whiteoak was growing up no better than the rest.
He met Rags as he was about to enter the house. The servant observed, with his air of impudent solicitude: "If I was you, Mister Finch, I shouldn't gaow into the 'ouse lookin' like that. I'd gaow round to the washroom and wash my fice. There's no hobject in advertising to the family, sir, wot kind of a night you've spent."
