"That's something like," he declared. "That's what I'm used to!" He thought with a shudder of the rest of the family going down to supper in the basement dining-room--that time-honored, semi-subterranean dungeon. "I'm glad, I'm sure, that they are going to have their new dining-room above-ground; for their own sakes, that is to say--not that it will matter the least to _me_!" XVI Truesdale airily waved the remaining coin from the plate to the waiter's pocket and rose to go. He never omitted the giving of a _pour-boire_; "it helps so much to increase the illusion," he said. The waiters, accordingly, bestowed an exaggerated attention upon his hat and coat, and had developed an almost clinging affection for his stick. They also insisted upon passing things that he could very well reach for himself, and their "bon soir, m'sieu'" was quite unfailing in its regularity. "This shaggy town may have a silver lining, after all," he would think; "but you've got to turn things inside out to find it." Near the exit Truesdale noticed Theodore Brower sitting with a _demi-tasse_ before him. "Hallo!" he called to Brower, "I didn't know you came here." "Once in a while," returned Brower. "I shop around. I'm a tramp. I eat anywhere. And I'm getting tired of it, too." He rose. "Give me a lift with this coat and I'll go along with you." Brower was too incorruptibly native to give a fee; usually therefore, he put on his coat for himself. "Well, what's the programme?" he asked, feeling for his inside sleeves. "Nothing," said Truesdale; "or anything. Only, I bar law, and philanthropy, and the _Complete Letter-writer_. What have you got in mind yourself? "I though of going up to the Consolation Club; this is their night." "Sounds sort of soothing," observed Truesdale. "Well, what do _they_ do?--nothing like the pow-wow at the Crepuscular, I hope. Are strangers admitted?" "What do they do? They try to show that the world isn't so bad as it seems. They'll let you in all right." "Because I'm not so bad as I seem? Thanks. They don't have a dinner, I hope." "No dinner." "But they give you a bite later on, don't they? I was almost famished at the Simplicity. What will they talk about?" "Almost anything; you never can tell. Come along." Truesdale, as an individual, interested Brower but moderately; Truesdale, as Jane's brother, interested him extremely. "You state your case--that's the idea; and the worse you make it, the better the face they try to put on it." "Do I? Well, I don't know that I've _got_ a case. And if I had, I might prefer to keep it to myself. However...."