hours, but he made his appeal. The man listened, made a slight gesture
forward with his disengaged hand, and impelled Randolph slowly up to the
street lamp until it shone on both their faces. Randolph saw a man a
few years his senior, with a slightly trimmed beard on his dark,
weather-beaten cheeks, well-cut features, a quick, observant eye, and a
sailor's upward glance and bearing. The stranger saw a thin, youthful,
anxious, yet refined and handsome face beneath straggling damp curls,
and dark eyes preternaturally bright with suffering. Perhaps his
experienced ear, too, detected some harmony with all this in Randolph's
voice.

"And you want something to eat, a night's lodging, and a chance of work
afterward," the stranger repeated with good-humored deliberation.

"Yes," said Randolph.

"You look it."

Randolph colored faintly.

"Do you ever drink?"

"Yes," said Randolph wonderingly.

"I thought I'd ask," said the stranger, "as it might play hell with you
just now if you were not accustomed to it. Take that. Just a swallow,
you know--that's as good as a jugful."

He handed him a heavy flask. Randolph felt the burning liquor scald his
throat and fire his empty stomach. The stranger turned and looked down