“You’ll have to go uptown,” said Peter.  “Nothing down here is open at this time.”

“I’m not sleepy,” said Leonore, “but I am so hungry!”

“Serves you right for eating no din—­” Watts started to say, but Leonore interjected, in an unusually loud voice.  “Can’t you get us something?”

“Nothing; that will do for you, I’m afraid,” said Peter.  “I had Dennett send up one of his coffee-boilers so that the men should have hot coffee through the night, and there’s a sausage-roll man close to him who’s doing a big business.  But they’ll hardly serve your purpose.”

“The very thing,” cried Watts.  “What a lark!”

“I can eat anything,” said Leonore.

So they went over to the stands.  Peter’s blanket was spread on the sidewalk, and three Newport swells, and the Democratic nominee for governor sat upon it, with their feet in the gutter, and drank half-bean coffee and ate hot sausage rolls, made all the hotter by the undue amount of mustard which the cook would put in.  What is worse, they enjoyed it as much as if it was the finest of dinners.  Would not society have been scandalized had it known of their doings?

How true it is that happiness is in a mood rather than in a moment.  How eagerly we prepare for and pursue the fickle sprite, only to find our preparations and chase giving nothing but dullness, fatigue, and ennui.  But then how often without exertion or warning, the sprite is upon us, and tinges the whole atmosphere.  So it was at this moment, with two of the four.  The coffee might have been all beans, and yet it would have been better than the best served in Viennese cafes.  The rolls might have had even a more weepy amount of mustard, and yet the burning and the tears would only have been the more of a joke.  The sun came up, as they ate, talked and laughed, touching everything about them with gold, but it might have poured torrents, and the two would have been as happy.

For Leonore was singing to herself:  “He isn’t dead.  He isn’t dead.”

And Peter was thinking:  “She loves me.  She must love me.”

CHAPTER LVIII.

GIFTS.

After the rolls and coffee had been finished, Peter walked with his friends to their cab.  It had all been arranged that they were to go to Peter’s quarters, and get some sleep.  These were less than eight blocks away, but the parting was very terrific!  However, it had to be done, and so it was gone through with.  Hard as it was, Peter had presence of mind enough to say, through the carriage window.

“You had better take my room, Miss D’Alloi, for the spare room is the largest.  I give you the absolute freedom of it, minus the gold-box.  Use anything you find.”

Then Peter went back to the chaotic street and the now breakfasting regiment, feeling that strikes, anarchists, and dynamite were only minor circumstances in life.