These gusts of debate which broke from the old men now and then were the only sounds in the room. Beside one of the men, and leaning forward over the table in a strained and awkward position, was the boy. He may have been fourteen years old. But it was strange and pitiful to see in his face, in his eyes, an air of age and grim experience almost equaling that of his two old companions. This boy was dressed in clothes too small for him, so that his wrists stuck out from his sleeves, his neck reared itself bare and gaunt above his coat collar, and his pale ankles and shins were exposed above the shoes he wore. This boy was reading. He was reading a copy of the bulletin of the Ohio Brewers’ Association. He was spelling it out word by word, with the closest attention. When the old men burst into argument, the boy shook his head a little as though annoyed by their outcries. But for the rest, he read steadily, passing his fingers along the lines as he read. The dog slept on the floor at his feet. The dog was just a dog. The other person in the room was the manager of the Weaver House. The manager was a woman. The manager was also the owner. She sat in a chair beside what had been the bar, at one side of the room. Her hands were folded in her lap, her head lolled on one shoulder, her mouth was open, and she was asleep. This woman was a virago. In the old days, she once hit a brakeman with a rubber bung starter, and he died. She was acquitted because the brakeman was drunk and she pleaded self-defense. She was feared and respected by the men among whom she lived. In Paris, in ’93, she would have been a commanding figure. In the Nail Mill Addition of Hardiston she was a plague. But as she sat here now, asleep, her old hands folded in her lap, she invited not fear nor disgust but just compassion. She was merely a tired old woman, asleep. She was still asleep when the street door opened and four men came in. The floor of the office was a foot below the level of the street. The first of the four men tripped and stumbled over this descent; and this slight sound woke the woman. She got to her feet with scrambling quickness, and from behind the breastwork of the dusty bar, surveyed her visitors. Her eyes were failing, and she thrust her head forward and twisted it on one side that she might see the better. When she saw who the leader of the four men was, she straightened up with relief and said, her voice openly contemptuous: “Oh, it’s you, Kite?” It was. V. R. Kite, Jack Routt, and two of Kite’s satellites. Kite glanced at the men over the checkerboard, and at the boy. The old men, at their entrance, had looked up in fretful hostility, surrendered to the inevitable, and returned to their game. The boy continued to read. “Hello, Mrs. Moody!” said Kite to the woman; and he stepped toward her and lowered his voice. “Is there a man--Wint Chase--staying here?”