At this moment a gas jet flashed its glare through a glass door to my right. I had seen this door, but supposed it led to the baggage-room--a fact that did not concern me in the least, for I had checked my red-banded trunk through to Cleveland. I got up and peered in. A stout woman in a hood, with a blanket shawl crossed over her bosom, its ends tied behind her back, was busying herself about a nickel-plated coffee-urn decorating one end of a long counter before which stood a row of high stools--the kind we sat on in school. I tried the knob of the door and walked in. "Is this the restaurant?" "What would ye take it for--a morgue?" she snapped out. "Can I get a cup of coffee?" "No, ye can't, not till six o'clock. And ye won't git it then if somebody don't turn out to help. Sittin' up all night lally-gaggin' and leavin' a pile o' dirty dishes for me to wash up. Look at 'em!" "Who's sitting up?" I inquired in a mild voice. "These '_ladies_'"--this with infinite scorn--"that's doin' waitin' for six dollars a week and what they kin pick up, and it's my opinion they picks up more'n 's good for 'em." "And they make you do all the work?" "Well, ye'd think so if ye stayed 'round here." "Can I help?" She had been swabbing down the counter as she talked, accentuating every sentence with an extra twist of her arm, the wash-cloth held tight between her fingers. She stopped now and looked me squarely in the face. "_Help!_ What are _you_ good for?" There was a tone of contempt in her voice. "Well, I'm handy passing plates and cutting bread and pie. I've nothing to do till the train comes along. Try me a while." "You don't look like no waiter." "But I am. I've been waiting on people all my life." I had crawled under the counter now and was standing beside her. "Where will you have this?" and I picked up from a side table a dish of apples and oranges caged in a wire screen. I knew I was lost if I hesitated. "Lay 'em here," she answered without a word of protest. I was not surprised. The big and boundless West has no place for men ashamed to work with their hands. Only the week before, in Colorado Springs, I had dined at a house where the second son of a noble lord had delivered the family milk that same morning, he being the guest of honor. And then--I was hungry. The woman watched me put the finishing touches on the dish of fruit, and said in an altered tone, as if her misgivings had been satisfied: "Now, fill that bucket with water, will ye? The sink's behind ye. I'll start the coffee. And _here!_" and she handed me a key--"after ye fetch the water, unlock the refrigerator and bring me that ham and them baked beans."