hand gradually swept him apart.  Across the great gulfs, on whose shores sat the dining-room tables, men and women looked and talked, but trod not as they came in to meat, each person knowing well his place.  The day of the commercial traveller was not yet, and for these there was no special table, they being for the most part assigned to the Red Belt; there being a certain portion of the hall where the tablecloths were checkered red and white.  It was not good to be in the Red Belt.

Sam, the owner of the livery barn, had one table in the corner, where he invariably sat.  His mode of entering the dining-room varied not with the passing of the years.  Appearing at the door, he cast a frightened look at the occupants who had preceded him, and in whose faces he could imagine nothing but critical censure of his own person.  Becoming aware of his hat, he made a dive and hung it up.  Then he trod timidly through the door, with a certain side-draught in his step, yet withal an acceleration of speed which presently brought him almost at a run to his corner of refuge, where he dropped, red and with a gulp.  Often he mopped his brow with the unwonted napkin, but discovery in this act by the stern eye of Nora, the head waitress, caused him much agony and a sudden search for a handkerchief.  When Nora stood at his chair, and repeated to him frostily the menu of the day, all the world went round to Sam, and he gained no idea of what was offered him.  With much effort at nonchalance, he would again wipe his face, take up his fork for twiddling, and say always the same thing.

“Oh, I ain’t very hungry; jes’ bring me a little pie an’ beef an’ coffee.”  And Nora, scornfully ignoring all this, then departed and brought him many things, setting them in array about his plate, and enabling him to eat as really he wished.  Whether Sam knew that Nora would do this is a question which must remain unanswered, but it is certain that he never changed the form of his own “order.”

Sam was a citizen.  He had grown up with the town.  He was, so to speak, one of the charter members of Ellisville, and thereby entitled to consideration.  Moreover, his business was one of the most lucrative in the community, and he was beyond the clutching shallows and upon the easy flood of prosperity.  No man could say that Sam owed him a dollar, nor could any man charge against him any act of perfidy, except such as might now and then be connected with the letting of a “right gentle” horse.  There was no reason why Sam might not look any man in the face, or any woman.  But this latter Sam had never done.  His admiration for Nora bade fair to remain a secret known of all but the one most interested.  Daily Sam sat at the table and listened to Nora’s icy tones.  He caught his breath if the glitter of her glasses faced him, and went in a fever as he saw her sail across the floor.  Daily he arose with the stern resolve that before the sun had set he would have told this woman of that which so oppressed him; yet each day, after he had dined, he stole furtively away to the hat rack and slouched across the street to his barn, gazing down at his feet with abasement on his soul.  “I ain’t afeard o’ any hoss that ever stood up,” said he to himself, “but I can’t say a word to that Nory girl, no matter how I try!”