"You keep your mouth shut, Mick," answered the old man, "and send me up a bottle o' whisky and a siphon o' seltzer as soon as your side partner comes in. This way, gentlemen."
He conducted them out to the sidewalk, and then in through another door, and up a narrow stairway, to a room with two windows overlooking the river. It was a room of moderate size, provided with old furniture, a faded carpet, mended curtains, and lithographs of the sort given away with Sunday newspapers. It had, in its shabbiness, that curious effect of cosiness and comfort which these shabby old rooms somehow possess, and luxurious rooms somehow lack. A narrow bed in a corner was covered with an old-fashioned patchwork quilt. There was a cylindrical stove, but not in use, as the weather had changed since the day before; and beside the stove, visible and unashamed, was a large wooden box partly full of coal. While Larcher was noticing these things, and Mr. Bud was offering chairs, Davenport made directly for the window and looked out with an interest limited to the task in hand, and perfunctory even so.
"This is my city residence," said the host, dropping into a chair. "It ain't every hard-worked countryman, these times, that's able to keep up a city residence." As this was evidently one of Mr. Bud's favorite jests, Larcher politically smiled. Mr. Bud soon showed that he had other favorite jests. "Yuh see, I make my livin' up the State, but every now and then I feel like comin' to the city for rest and quiet, and so I keep this place the year round."
"You come to New York for rest and quiet?" exclaimed Larcher, still kindly feigning amusement.
"Sure! Why not? As fur as rest goes, I just loaf around and watch other people work. That's what I call rest with a sauce to it. And as fur as quiet goes, I get used to the noises. Any sound that don't concern me, don't annoy me. I go about unknown, with nobody carin' what my business is, or where I'm bound fur. Now in the country everybody wants to know where from, and where to, and what fur. The only place to be reely alone is where thur's so many people that one man don't count for anything. And talk about noise!--What's all the clatter and bang amount to, if it's got nothin' to do with your own movements? Now at my home where the noise consists of half a dozen women's voices askin' me about this, and wantin' that, and callin' me to account for t'other,--that's the kind o' noise that jars a man. Yuh see, I got a wife and four daughters. They're very good women--very good women, the whole bunch--but I do find it restful and refreshin' to take the train to New York about once a month, and loaf around a week or so without anybody takin' notice, and no questions ast."