"What's wrong down there?" he called. "Why don't you go to bed?"
After a moment, came Manual's voice, "Ain't sleepy."
"Neither am I. Look here, do you like to play cards?"
"What kind? Euchre! I like euchre all right. Or pitch."
"Well, what would you say to coming up and having a game of euchre
then, Manuel? If you can't sleep?"
"That'd be all right."
The lower footfalls ascended to join the footfalls on the upper floor.
There was the sound of a door closing.
Boaz sat still. In the gloom he might have been taken for a piece of
furniture, of machinery, an extraordinary lay figure, perhaps, for
the trying on of the boots he made. He seemed scarcely to breathe,
only the sweat starting from his brow giving him an aspect of life.
He ought to have run, and leaped up that inner stair and pounded
with his fists on that door. He seemed unable to move. At rare
intervals feet passed on the sidewalk outside, just at his elbow, so
to say, and yet somehow, to-night, immeasurably far away. Beyond the
orbit of the moon. He heard Rugg, the policeman, noting the silence
of the shop, muttering, "Boaz is to bed to-night," as he passed.
The wind increased. It poured against the shop with its deep,
continuous sound of a river.
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