fat, and oddly damp and lifeless. He could see her
countenance now -- it was plaster white with insignificant
features and rose like an amorphous column
from a swollen throat, a nose like a dab of putty,
eyes obscured by drooping, pouchy lids, leaden-hued.

"It's a good thing you seen me," she told him, endeavoring
to establish a relationship of easy confidence,
"instead of them diseased Mags down the
street. Shall we have a little drink upstairs?"

"It's early," he negligently interposed; "how
about a turn of the cards first? Do you know any one
who would take a hand?"

"I got my friend here, and there's a gentleman
at the hotel would accommodate us. They're inside."
She rose, and moved toward the door, waving
him to follow. Her slow, clumsy body and
chinless, full-lidded head reminded him of a turtle;
she gave a still deeper amphibious impression -- there
was something markedly cold-blooded, inhuman,
deleted, in her incongruous, gaudy bulk -- an
impression of a low, primitive organism, the subtle
smell of primal mud.

"Jake!" she called at the entrance to the crude
hotel office; "Jake! Mr. Ottinger!, here's a gentleman
wants a little game."

Two men hastily rose and advanced toward the
door. The first, Jake, was small, with the narrow,

[[57]]

p056 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p057w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p058

v?