Midnight | Page 2

battled to the skin, and chewed to the bone. It was well nigh unbearable.
The young taxi-driver's lips became blue. He tried to light a cigarette,
but his fingers were unable to hold the match.
He looked around. A street-car, bound for a suburb, passed noisily. It
paused briefly before the railroad-station, neither discharging nor
taking on a passenger, then clanged protestingly on its way. Impressed
in Spike's mind was a mental picture of the chilled motorman, and of
the conductor huddled over the electric heater within the car. Spike felt
a personal resentment against that conductor. Comfort seemed unfair
on a night like this; heat a luxury more to be desired than much fine
gold.
From across the street the light of the White Star Café beckoned.
Ordinarily Spike was not a patron of the White Star, nor other eating
establishments of its class. The White Star was notoriously unsanitary,
its food poisonously indigestible; but as Spike's eyes were held
hypnotically by the light he thought of two things--within the circle of
that light he could find heat and a scalding liquid which was flavored
with coffee.
The vision was too much for Spike. The fast train, due now at 12.45,
might bring a fare. It was well beyond the bounds of reason that he
would get a passenger from the accommodation due in a few minutes.
There were no casuals abroad.
The young driver clambered with difficulty from his seat. He staggered

as he tried to stand erect, his numb limbs protesting against the burden
of his healthy young body. A gale howled around the dark Jackson
Street corner of the long, rambling station, and Spike defensively
covered both ears with his gloved hands.
He made his way eagerly across the street; slipping and sliding on the
glassy surface, head bent against the driving sleet, clothes crackling
where particles of ice had formed. Spike reached the door of the
eating-house, opened it, and almost staggered as the warmth of the
place smote him like a hot blast.
For a few seconds he stood motionless, reveling in the sheer animal
comfort of the change. Then he made his way to the counter, seated
himself on a revolving stool, and looked up at the waiter who came
stolidly forward from the big, round-bellied stove at the rear.
"Hello, George!"
The restauranteur nodded.
"Hello!"
"My gosh! What a night!"
"Pretty cold, ain't it?"
"Cold?" Spike Walters looked up antagonistically. "Say, you don't
know what cold means. I'd rather have your job to-night than a million
dollars. Only if I had a million dollars I'd buy twenty stoves, set 'em in
a circle, build a big fire in each one, sit in the middle, and tell winter to
go to thunder--that's what I'd do. Now, George, hustle and lay me out a
cup of coffee, hot--get that?--and a couple of them greasy doughnuts of
yourn."
The coffee and doughnuts were duly produced, and the stolid Athenian
retired to the torrid zone of his stove. Spike bravely tried one of the
doughnuts and gave it up as a bad job, but he quaffed the coffee with an
eagerness which burned his throat and imparted a pleasing sensation of

inward warmth. Then he stretched luxuriously and lighted a cigarette.
He glanced through the long-unwashed window of the White Star
Cafe--"Ladies and gents welcome," it announced--and shuddered at the
prospect of again braving the elements. Across the street his
unprotesting taxicab stood parked parallel to the curb; beyond it
glowered the end of the station. To the right of the long, rambling
structure he could see the occasional glare of switch engines and
track-walkers' lanterns in the railroad yards.
As he looked, he saw the headlight of the locomotive at the head of the
accommodation split the gloom. Instinctively Spike rose, paid his
check, and stood uncomfortably at the door, buttoning the coat tightly
around his neck.
Of course it was impossible that the accommodation carried a fare for
him; but then duty was duty, and Spike took exceeding pride in the
company for which he worked. The company's slogan of service was
part of Spike's creed. He opened the door, recoiled for a second as the
gale swept angrily against him, then plunged blindly across the street.
He clambered into the seat of his cab, depressed the starter, and
eventually was answered by the reluctant cough of the motor. He raced
it for a while, getting the machinery heated up preparatory to the
possibility of a run.
Then he saw the big doors at the main entrance of the station open and
a few melancholy passengers, brought to town by the accommodation
train, step to the curb, glance about in search of a street-car, and then
duck back into the station. Spike shoved his clutch in