Presently he strolled up the street toward the hotel, where the evening’s interest centred. He glanced indifferently into the saloons, nodded a greeting when he wished, but more often ignored one. At a corner a beggar, attracted to the little place from some limbo where news of the wedding had filtered, held out his cap. “It’s my thirty-third birthday to-day, pal,” he said. “It’ll bring you good luck to cough up somethin’ on me, see if it don’t.” The Inger stopped with simulated interest. The man—a thin, degenerate creature, with a wrinkled smile—approached him hopefully. Abruptly the Inger’s powerful arm shot out, caught him below the waist, lifted him squirming in the air, and laid him carefully in the gutter. “What you need is rest,” he said, with perfect gentleness, and left him there. The hotel where the wedding was to be celebrated had light in every window. Here Bunchy’s preparations had been prodigal. Blankets and skins lined the walls and covered the floor of the office where a fire was roaring and the card tables were in readiness. Shouting and imprecation, chiefly from women, came from the kitchen, where the wedding supper was in preparation. In the hotel desk was Bunchy himself, engaged in somewhat delayed attention to his nails. His hair, still wet from its brushing, ran away from his temples, lifting the corners of his forehead so that it seemed to be smiling. He had a large face, and a little tight mouth, with raw-looking, shiny lips. There was something pathetic in his careful black clothes and his uncomfortable collar and his plaid cravat. “How much would you sink to back out?” was the Inger’s salutation. Bunchy grinned sheepishly. “How much did it cost you?” he inquired. “Done it for nothing,” the Inger declared. “I ain’t the charmer you are, Bunchy. Never was.” The groom leaned nearer the light, minutely examining a black, cracked finger. “She ain’t goin’ to be very much in the way,” said he, confidentially. “What?” asked the Inger, attentively. Bunchy shook his head, pursing the tight, raw lips. “Not her,” he said. “She believes anything you tell her—the whole works. There won’t never be no kickin’ from her about me not loafin’ home.” “Well,” said the Inger, still with minute attention, “what you gettin’ married for, then?” “Huh?” said Bunchy, an obstinate finger between his lips. “I thought,” explained the Inger, “that a fellow got married for to have a home. Far as I can see, though,” he added with an air of great intellectual candor, “home is hell.” Bunchy threw back his head and looked at him. Curiously, when he laughed, his little tight mouth revealed no teeth. His answer was deliberate, detailed, unspeakable.