Gerry missed his club, but for that he found a substitute. Cluny’s, next door to the hotel, was a strange hall of convivial pleasure. A massive square door, the masonry of which centuries had hardened and blackened to stone, gave on to a long hallway that ended in a wider dungeon. Here stood a bar and half a dozen teak tables. The floor was of stone flags.
The clientele had the cleavage of oil and water. One part stood to their drink at the bar, had it, and went out. The other sat to their glasses at the tables, and sat late. Among these was a pale, thin man of about Gerry’s age, with a mouth slightly twisted to humor until toward evening drink loosened it to mere weakness. One afternoon he nodded to Gerry, and Gerry left the bar for the tables. After that they sat together. The man was an American--the American consul. Gerry liked him, pitied him, and forgot to pity himself. One night he invited the consul to his room. They sat in the balcony, a bottle of whisky and a siphon between them. Gerry started to put his glass on the rail.
“Don’t do it,” said the consul, with his twisted smile; “it might carry away.” He went on more seriously. “It’s rotten. The whole place is rotten. There’s a blight on the men and the women and on the children. God!”
Gerry put down his glass untouched. “Why don’t you go home?”
The consul took a long drink, eyed the empty glass, and spoke into it.
“I used to think just like that. ’Why don’t you go home?’ I used to think I could go home, that it was just a question of buying a ticket and climbing aboard a liner. But--” he broke off, and glanced at Gerry as he refilled his glass.
“Well,” said the consul, “I’m just drunk enough to tell you. I’m only proud in the mornings before I’m thoroughly waked up. I used to drive a pen for a Western daily at twenty-five dollars a week. It was good pay, and I married on it. I and the girl lived like the corn-fed hogs of our native State. Life was one sunshine, and when the baby came, we joined hands, and said good-by to sorrow forever. Then her people got busy and landed me this job. The pay was three thousand, and if you want to see how big three thousand dollars a year can look, just go and stand behind any old kind of plow in Kansas. I jumped at it. We sold out our little outfit and raked up just enough to see me out here. The girl and the kid went to visit her people. I was to save up out of the first quarter’s pay and send for them. That was three years ago.”