The restauranteur nodded.

“Hello!”

“My gosh!  What a night!”

“Pretty cold, ain’t it?”

“Cold?” Spike Walters looked up antagonistically.  “Say, you don’t know what cold means.  I’d rather have your job to-night than a million dollars.  Only if I had a million dollars I’d buy twenty stoves, set ’em in a circle, build a big fire in each one, sit in the middle, and tell winter to go to thunder—­that’s what I’d do.  Now, George, hustle and lay me out a cup of coffee, hot—­get that?—­and a couple of them greasy doughnuts of yourn.”

The coffee and doughnuts were duly produced, and the stolid Athenian retired to the torrid zone of his stove.  Spike bravely tried one of the doughnuts and gave it up as a bad job, but he quaffed the coffee with an eagerness which burned his throat and imparted a pleasing sensation of inward warmth.  Then he stretched luxuriously and lighted a cigarette.

He glanced through the long-unwashed window of the White Star Cafe—­“Ladies and gents welcome,” it announced—­and shuddered at the prospect of again braving the elements.  Across the street his unprotesting taxicab stood parked parallel to the curb; beyond it glowered the end of the station.  To the right of the long, rambling structure he could see the occasional glare of switch engines and track-walkers’ lanterns in the railroad yards.

As he looked, he saw the headlight of the locomotive at the head of the accommodation split the gloom.  Instinctively Spike rose, paid his check, and stood uncomfortably at the door, buttoning the coat tightly around his neck.

Of course it was impossible that the accommodation carried a fare for him; but then duty was duty, and Spike took exceeding pride in the company for which he worked.  The company’s slogan of service was part of Spike’s creed.  He opened the door, recoiled for a second as the gale swept angrily against him, then plunged blindly across the street.  He clambered into the seat of his cab, depressed the starter, and eventually was answered by the reluctant cough of the motor.  He raced it for a while, getting the machinery heated up preparatory to the possibility of a run.

Then he saw the big doors at the main entrance of the station open and a few melancholy passengers, brought to town by the accommodation train, step to the curb, glance about in search of a street-car, and then duck back into the station.  Spike shoved his clutch in and crawled forward along the curb, leaving the inky shadows of the far end of the station, and emerging finally into the effulgence of the arc at the corner of Cypress Street.

Once again the door of the Union Station opened.  This time Spike took a professional interest in the person who stepped uncertainly out into the night.  Long experience informed him that this was a fare.

She was of medium height, and comfortably guarded against the frigidity of the night by a long fur coat buttoned snugly around her neck.  She wore a small squirrel tam, and was heavily veiled.  In her right hand she carried a large suit-case and in her left a purse.