As he goes you watch the others going, and then the silence settles down and the night. There is no sense of traffic here now, no great need of light. The old Irish woman sinks to the dismal task of waiting, for morning, I presume. Now and then some passing pedestrian will buy a paper, but not often. But these others--they have gone in the direction of the four winds of heaven; they are applying at the shabby doors of restaurants, in Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx, Hoboken, Staten Island; they are sitting on stoops, holding their own at shop doors. They have the right to ask first, the right to be first, because they are first--noble privilege. And you and I--well, we turn in our dreams and rest. The great world wags on. Our allotted portion is not this. We are not of these men in the dark. THE MEN IN THE STORM It is a winter evening. Already, at four o’clock, the somber hues of night are over all. A heavy snow is falling, a fine, picking, whipping snow, borne forward by a swift wind in long, thin lines. The street is bedded with it, six inches of cold, soft carpet, churned brown by the crush of teams and the feet of men. Along the Bowery men slouch through it with collars up and hats pulled over their ears. Before a dirty, four-story building gathers a crowd of men. It begins with the approach of two or three, who hang about the closed wooden door and beat their feet to keep them warm. They make no effort to go in, but shift ruefully about, digging their hands deep in their pockets and leering at the crowd and the increasing lamps. There are old men with grizzled beards and sunken eyes; men who are comparatively young but shrunken by disease; men who are middle-aged. With the growth of the crowd about the door comes a murmur. It is not conversation, but a running comment directed at any one. It contains oaths and slang phrases. “I wisht they’d hurry up.” “Look at the cop watchin’.” “Maybe it ain’t winter, nuther.” “I wisht I was with Peary.” [Illustration: The Men in the Storm] Now a sharper lash of wind cuts down, and they huddle closer. There is no anger, no threatening words. It is all sullen endurance, unlightened by either wit or good fellowship. An automobile goes jingling by with some reclining figure in it. One of the members nearest the door sees it. “Look at the bloke ridin’!” “He ain’t so cold.” “Eh! eh! eh!” yells another, the automobile having long since passed out of hearing. Little by little the night creeps on. Along the walk a crowd hurries on its way home. Still the men hang around the door, unwavering. “Ain’t they ever goin’ to open up?” queries a hoarse voice suggestively. This seems to renew general interest in the closed door, and many gaze in that direction. They look at it as dumb brutes look, as dogs paw and whine and study the knob. They shift and blink and mutter, now a curse, now a comment. Still they wait, and still the snow whirls and cuts them.