Gradually the crowd thinned.  Soon only Fred and Storch were left at the particular table that they had chosen.  Stragglers came and went, but still Storch made no move to go, and Fred was equally inactive.  He felt warm and comfortably drowsy and, on the whole, quite content.  The waiter cleared away the empty dishes and then discreetly ignored them.  Fred fell to studying his reflection in the polished mirror running the length of the room.  He had to acknowledge that he looked savage, with his hair long and untidy and a bristling, sunburnt beard smothering his features.  And suddenly, in the intensity of his concentration, he felt a swooning sense of nonexistence, as if his inner consciousness had detached itself someway from the egotism of the flesh and stood apart, watching...  He was recalled by Storch’s voice.  He shuddered slightly and turned his face toward his questioner.

“I didn’t hear what you said,” escaped him.

Storch leaned forward.  “I was asking what you were doing ... up north in the mountains during December.  Only a desperate man or a fool would take a chance like that...  And I can see you’re not a fool...  There aren’t any prisons up that way that I know of.”

“Prisons!  What do you mean?”

“You’ve escaped from somewhere.”

“How do you know?”

“You’re still furtive in spite of your pretended calm.  I know the look.  I know the feeling.  I’ve seen scores of men who have been through the mill.  I’ve been through the mill myself.  Not once, but several times.  I’ve been in nearly every jail in the country worth putting up at...  Even the Federal prisons haven’t been proof against me.  I’ve beat them all.  It’s a game I like to play.  Just as one man plunges into stocks, or another breaks strikes, or another leads a howling mob to victory...  Every man has his game.  What’s yours?”

Fred shrugged.  “Why are you telling me all this?” he countered.  “You don’t know me.”

Storch laughed, showing his greenish teeth again.  “What difference does that make?...  I’m a pretty good judge of character, and I think I’ve got you right.  You might play a rough game, but it would be square—­according to your standards...  I question most standards, but that is neither here nor there.  They shackle some people extraordinarily.  Just now you’re drifting about without any.  But you’ll tie to some sort of anchor pretty soon...  That’s why you interest me.  I want to get you while you’re still drifting.”

Fred felt a sudden chill.  He was suspicious of this ironically genial man opposite him who bought him food and then prodded for his secret.  There was something diabolical about the way he calmly admitted an impersonal but curiously definite interest.

“What is your business, anyway?” Fred shot out, suddenly.

“I’m a fisher for men,” he replied, cryptically.  “Some people build up ... others destroy.  There must be always those who clear the ground—­the wreckers, in other words...  There’s too much attention paid to building.  Folks are in such a hurry they go about rearing all kinds of crazy structures on rotten foundations...  I’m looking for some human dynamite to make a good job.”