the darkness and solitude made him feel less ashamed.  By the last flickering street lamp he could see that he was a man about his own size, with something of the rolling gait of a sailor, which was increased by the weight of a traveling portmanteau he was swinging in his hand.  As he approached he evidently detected Randolph’s waiting figure, slackened his speed slightly, and changed his portmanteau from his right hand to his left as a precaution for defense.

Randolph felt the blood flush his cheek at this significant proof of his disreputable appearance, but determined to accost him.  He scarcely recognized the sound of his own voice now first breaking the silence for 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 the vacant wharf to the darkness from which he came.  Then he turned to Randolph again and said abruptly,—­

“Strong enough to carry this bag?”

“Yes,” said Randolph.  The whiskey—­possibly the relief—­had given him new strength.  Besides, he might earn his alms.

“Take it up to room 74, Niantic Hotel—­top of next street to this, one block that way—­and wait till I come.”

“What name shall I say?” asked Randolph.

“Needn’t say any.  I ordered the room a week ago.  Stop; there’s the key.  Go in; change your togs; you’ll find something in that bag that’ll fit you.  Wait for me.  Stop—­no; you’d better get some grub there first.”  He fumbled in his pockets, but fruitlessly.  “No matter.  You’ll find a buckskin purse, with some scads in it, in the bag.  So long.”  And before Randolph could thank him, he lurched away again into the semi-darkness of the wharf.