Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/201

 night with snow falling that melted as it fell. She had been standing in the doorway watching Teena Bitts draw ale from the fine brass-bound tuns and listening with hearty appreciation to the sallies of old Mrs. Crumyss, who was trying to drink through her veil, when the door opened and in out of the fog came a small thin man with a pinched face as white as wax. He had no overcoat and the collar of his coat was turned up about his thin throat. None of the others appeared to take any notice but the sight of him did something to Bessie. Perhaps it was pity that struck her down, for he was everything that she was not. He was sickly, white and shivering, with a wild look in his near-sighted brown eyes. She marked him at once for her own, filled with a strange emotion that sometimes took possession of her. To herself she called it, "feeling that she ought to brighten 'im up a bit," but it was really much more primitive and direct than that. Bessie felt sorry for anyone who could not see that the world was a fine and shining place, as fine indeed as the brass bands on Winterbottom's ale barrels. She could not see why everyone should not be as happy as herself.

He did not respond to her sallies as other men did. Even after she had served him with meat pie, a pitcher of stout, a gooseberry tart and some coffee, his spirits failed to show any signs of rising. Nothing, she discovered, seemed to have any effect upon him. He failed even to appreciate the excruciating sallies of Mrs. Crumyss. After he had eaten he began to drink brandies and sodas, drinks with a great deal of brandy and very little soda. The