The counting part of the mind made no comment on this discrepancy;it did not say that this discovery put things in a very different light. It merely counted, registered the result, and ceased to function, with an air of saying that it would ascertain the facts without prejudice and you could do what you liked about them. It didn't care.
That night a solitary guest enjoyed the quiet hospitality of the Crystal Palace Hotel. He might have been seen--but was not--to effect a late evening entrance to this snug inn by means of a front window which had, it would seem, at some earlier hour of the day, been unfastened from within. Here a not-too-luxurious but sufficing bed was contrived on the floor of the lobby from a pile of neatly folded blankets at hand, and a second night's repose was enjoyed by the lonely patron, who again at an early hour of the morning, after thoughtfully refolding the blankets that had protected him, was at some pains to leave the place as he had entered it without attracting public notice, perchance of unpleasant character.
On this day it would not have been possible for any part of the mind whatsoever to misvalue the remaining treasure of silver coin. It had become inconsiderable, and even if kept from view could be, and was, counted again and again by mere blind fingertips. They contracted, indeed, a senseless habit of confining themselves in a trouser's pocket to count the half-dollar, the quarter, and the two dimes long after the total was too well known to its owner.
Nor did this total, unimpressive at best, long retain even these poor dimensions. A visit to the cafeteria, in response to the imperious demands of a familiar organic process, resulted in less labour, by two dimes, for the stubbornly reiterative fingertips.
An ensuing visit to the Holden lot barber, in obedience to social demands construed to be equally imperious with the physical, reduced all subsequent counting, whether by fingertips or a glance of the eye, to barest mechanical routine. A single half-dollar is easy to count. Still, on the following morning there were two coins to count. True, both were dimes.
A diligent search among the miscellany of the Crystal Palace Hotel had failed to reveal a single razor. The razor used by the miner should in all reason have been found, but there was neither that nor any other. The baffled seeker believed there must have been crooked work somewhere. Without hesitation he found either Jimmie or his companion to be guilty of malfeasance in office. But at least one item of more or less worried debate was eliminated. He need no longer weigh mere surface gentility against the stern demands of an active metabolism. A shave cost a quarter. Twenty cents would not buy a shave, but it would buy at the cafeteria something more needful to any one but a fop.
He saw himself in the days to come--if there were very many days to come, of which he was now not too certain--descending to the unwholesome artistic level of the elder Montague. He would, in short, be compelled to peddle the brush. And of course as yet it was nothing like a brush--nothing to kindle the eye of a director needing genuine brushes. In the early morning light he fingered a somewhat gaunt chin and wondered how long "they" would require to grow. Not yet could he be taken for one of those actors compelled by the rigorous exactions of creative screen art to let Nature have its course with his beard. At present he merely needed a shave.
And the collar had not improved with usage. Also, as the day wore on, coffee with one egg proved to have been not long-enduring fare for this private in the army of the unemployed. Still, his morale was but slightly impaired. There were always ways, it seemed. And the later hours of the hungry afternoon were rather pleasantly occupied in dwelling upon one of them.
The sole guest of the Crystal Palace Hotel entered the hostelry that night somewhat earlier than was usual; indeed at the very earliest moment that foot traffic through the narrow street seemed to have diminished to a point where the entry could be effected without incurring the public notice which he at these moments so sincerely shunned. After a brief interval inside the lobby he issued from his window with certain objects in hand, one of which dropped as he clambered out. The resulting clamour seemed to rouse far echoes along the dead street, and he hastily withdrew, with a smothered exclamation of dismay, about the nearest corner of the building until it could be ascertained that echoes alone had been aroused.
After a little breathless waiting he slunk down the street, keeping well within friendly shadows, stepping softly, until he reached the humble cabin where so lately the honest miners had enacted their heart-tragedy. He jerked the latch-string of the door and was swiftly inside, groping a way to the fireplace. Here he lighted matches, thoughtfully appropriated that morning from the cafeteria counter. He shielded the blaze with one hand while with the other he put to use the articles he had brought from his hotel.
Into a tin cooking pot with a long handle he now hastily ladled well-cooked beans from the discarded heap in the fireplace, by means of an iron spoon. He was not too careful. More or less ashes accompanied the nutritious vegetables as the pot grew to be half full. That was a thing to be corrected later, and at leisure. When the last bean had been salvaged the flame of another match revealed an unsuspected item--a half-loaf of bread nestled in the ashes at the far corner of the fireplace. It lacked freshness; was, in truth, withered and firm to the touch, but doubtless more wholesome than bread freshly baked.
