“Nothing—­only I hoped to find you more hospitable.”

“Oh, smoke away—­guess we can stand it, if you can.  Dinner’s over”—­he looked at the big clock decorating the white wall—­“but they’ll be piling in here after the theatres is out.  You live around here?”

“No, not immediately.”

“Looking for any one?”

Felix gave a slight start and, from under his narrowed lids, shot one of his bull’s-eye flashes.

The man caught the flash and, misinterpreting it, bent down and said in a hoarse whisper:  “Come from the central office, don’t you?”

Felix took a long puff at his pipe.  “No, I am only a very tired man who has come in out of the wet to rest and smoke,” he answered, with a dry smile, “but if it will add to your comfort and improve your hospitality in any way, you can send your waiter back here and I will order something to eat.”

The stout man laid his hand confidently on Felix’s shoulder.  “That’s all right, pard—­I ain’t worryin’, and don’t you.  There’s nothin’ doin’, and I’m a-givin’ it to you straight.”

Felix nodded in dismissal, rested his elbows on the table, and again puffed away at his brierwood.  Being mistaken for a central office detective might or might not be of assistance.  At present, he would let matters stand.

As he smoked on, the room, which had been almost entirely empty of customers, began filling up.  A reporter bustled in, ordered a cup of coffee, and, clearing away the plates and casters, squared his elbows and attacked a roll of paper.  Two belated shop-girls entered laughing, hung their wet waterproofs on a hook behind their chairs, and were soon lost in the intricacies of the printed menu.  Groups of three and four passed him, beating the rain from their hats and cloaks, the women stamping their wet feet.

The sudden influx from the outside, bringing in the wet and mud of the streets, had started innumerable puddles over the clean, sanded floor.  The man wearing the dingy white jacket craned his head, noticed the widening pools, opened a door behind the bar leading to the cellar below, and shouted down, in a coarse voice, “Here, Stuffy, git busy—­everything slopped up,” and resumed his place beside the group of men, their talk still centred on the stranger in the mackintosh, who could be seen scrutinizing each new arrival.

Something in the poise and dignity of the object of their attention as he sat quietly, paper in hand, a curl of blue smoke mounting ceilingward from his pipe, must also have impressed the newcomers, for no one of them drew out any of the empty chairs immediately beside him, although the room was now comparatively crowded.  Finally, the man who answered to the name of “Stuffy” appeared from the direction of the group near the bar, and made his way toward Felix.  He carried a broom and a bucket, from which trailed a mop used for swabbing wet floors.  When he reached O’Day’s table, he dropped to his knees and attacked a sluiceway leading to a miniature lake, fed by the umbrellas and waterproofs belonging to the two girls opposite.