The young driver clambered with difficulty from his seat. He staggered as he tried to stand erect, his numb limbs protesting against the burden of his healthy young body. A gale howled around the dark Jackson Street corner of the long, rambling station, and Spike defensively covered both ears with his gloved hands. He made his way eagerly across the street; slipping and sliding on the glassy surface, head bent against the driving sleet, clothes crackling where particles of ice had formed. Spike reached the door of the eating-house, opened it, and almost staggered as the warmth of the place smote him like a hot blast. For a few seconds he stood motionless, reveling in the sheer animal comfort of the change. Then he made his way to the counter, seated himself on a revolving stool, and looked up at the waiter who came stolidly forward from the big, round-bellied stove at the rear. "Hello, George!" The restauranteur nodded. "Hello!" "My gosh! What a night!" "Pretty cold, ain't it?" "Cold?" Spike Walters looked up antagonistically. "Say, you don't know what cold means. I'd rather have your job to-night than a million dollars. Only if I had a million dollars I'd buy twenty stoves, set 'em in a circle, build a big fire in each one, sit in the middle, and tell winter to go to thunder--that's what I'd do. Now, George, hustle and lay me out a cup of coffee, hot--get that?--and a couple of them greasy doughnuts of yourn." The coffee and doughnuts were duly produced, and the stolid Athenian retired to the torrid zone of his stove. Spike bravely tried one of the doughnuts and gave it up as a bad job, but he quaffed the coffee with an eagerness which burned his throat and imparted a pleasing sensation of inward warmth. Then he stretched luxuriously and lighted a cigarette. He glanced through the long-unwashed window of the White Star Cafe--"Ladies and gents welcome," it announced--and shuddered at the prospect of again braving the elements. Across the street his unprotesting taxicab stood parked parallel to the curb; beyond it glowered the end of the station. To the right of the long, rambling structure he could see the occasional glare of switch engines and track-walkers' lanterns in the railroad yards. As he looked, he saw the headlight of the locomotive at the head of the accommodation split the gloom. Instinctively Spike rose, paid his check, and stood uncomfortably at the door, buttoning the coat tightly around his neck.