He returned to his table, and amused himself listening to Charlie’s talk. Then he looked at his watch and found that it was nearly two hours after midnight. Within six or seven hours the train would be starting. He wondered what his friends would say if they could see him. He was afraid that if he should drop off again, he might sleep too late, and so he determined to keep awake. He communicated this plan to Charlie, who nodded approval. But he was not equal to it. Within a very short time his chin was reposing on his breast, and Charlie was looking at him and chuckling. “Awful good joke,” murmured Charlie. Young Van fell to dreaming. He thought that the doors suddenly swung in, and that Purple Finn himself entered the room. The noise seemed, at the instant, to die down; the barkeeper paused and gazed; the card-players turned and sat motionless in their chairs. Finn, thought Young Van, nodded in a general way, and laughed, and his laugh had no humor in it. He walked toward the bar, but halfway his roving eye rested on the placard, and he stood motionless. The blue tobacco haze curled around him and dimmed the outlines of his figure. In the dream he seemed to grow a little smaller while he stood there. Then he walked across and read the placard, taking a long time about it, as if he found it difficult to grasp the meaning. When he finally turned and faced the crowd, his expression was weak and uncertain. He seemed about to say something but whatever it was he wished to say, the words did not come. Instead, he walked to the bar, ordered a drink, put it down with a shaking hand, and left the room as he had entered it, silently. The door swung shut, and somebody laughed; then all returned to their cards. When Young Van awoke, the room was flooded with sunlight from the side windows. He straightened up in his chair and looked around. Charlie was still at the table. Here and there along the side bench men were sleeping. The card-players, with seamed faces and cold eyes, were still at their business. A new set of players had come in, one of them a giant of a man, dressed like a cowboy, with a hard eye, a heavy mustache, and a tuft of hair below his under lip. The engineer was almost afraid to look at his watch. It was half-past eight. He turned to the still smiling Charlie. “See here,” he said, “did Finn come in here last night?” Charlie nodded. “You didn’t wake up.” Young Van almost groaned aloud. “Where is he? Where did he go?” “Listen to ’im!” Charlie was indicating a lank stranger who was leaning on the bar, and talking to a dozen men who had gathered about him. “... And when I got off the train,” the lank man was saying, “there was Purple Finn a-standin’ on the platform. I thought he looked sort o’ caved in. ‘Hello, Purple,’ says I, ‘what you doin’ up so early in the mornin’?’ But he never answers a word; just climbs on the train and sits down in the smoker and looks out the window as if he thought somebody was after ’im.”