“Ah-h-h!” he exclaimed, using the back of his hand to wipe mobile lips.  “Not since I drank in Tony’s have I tasted that stuff!  The taste makes me homesick for what never was my home, nor ever can be!  Tony’s—­ah!”

“What Tony’s?” demanded Will, emerging from whispered interludes with Gloria like a man coming out of a dream.

“Tony’s down near the Battery.”

“What—­the Battery, New York—?”

“Where else?  Tony was a friend of mine.  Tony lent me money when I landed in the States without a coin.  It was right that I should take a last drink with Tony before I came away forever.”

Fred reached into the corner for a lump of wood and set it down suggestively before the fire.  Kagig accepted and sat down on it, stretching his legs out rather wearily.

“I noticed you’ve been remembering your English much better than at first,” said Will.  “Go on, man, tell us!”

Kagig cleared his throat and warmed himself while his eyes seemed to search the flames for stories from a half-forgotten past.

“Weren’t the States good enough for you?” Will suggested, by way of starting him off.

“Good enough?  Ah!” He made all eight fingers crack like castanets.  “Much too good!  How could I live there safe and comfortable—­eggs and bacon—­clean shirt—­good shoes—­an apartment with a bath in it —­easy work—­good pay—­books to read—­kindness—­freedom—­how could I accept all that, remembering my people in Armenia?”

He ran his fingers through his hair, and stared in the fire again —­remembering America perhaps.

“There was a time when I forgot.  All young men forget for a while if you feed them well enough.  The sensation of having money in my pocket and the right to spend it made me drunk.  I forgot Armenia.  I took out what are called first papers.  I was very prosperous—­very grateful.”

He lapsed into silence again, holding his head bowed between his hands.

“Why didn’t you become a citizen?” asked Will.

“Ah!  Many a time I thought of it.  I am citizen of no land—­of no land!  I am outlaw here—­outlaw in the States!  I slew a Turk.  They would electrocute me in New York—­for slaying the man who—­have you heard me tell what happened to my mother, before my very eyes?  Well —­that man came to America, and I slew him!”

“Why did you leave Armenia in the first place?” asked Gloria, for he seemed to need pricking along to prevent him from getting off the track into a maze of silent memory.

“Why not?  I was lucky to get away!  That cursed Abdul Hamid had been rebuked by the powers of Europe for butchering Bulgars, so he turned on us Armenians in order to prove to himself that he could do as he pleased in his own house.  I tell you, murder and rape in those days were as common as flies at midsummer!  I escaped, and worked my passage in the stoke-hole of a little merchant steamer —­they were little ships in those days.  And when I reached America without money or friends they let me land because I had been told by the other sailors to say I was fleeing from religious persecution.  The very first day I found a friend in Tony.  I cleaned his windows, and the bar, and the spittoons; and he lent me money to go where work would be plentiful.  Those were the days when I forgot Armenia.”