If it could only have been Smith's 

 or Brown's or Jones's there might 

 have been some chance of decent 

 accommodation, but the " Palaces" 

 and the "Royals" well, we knew 

 them. 



I resisted a woman's inclination 

 to cower and straightened to meet 

 the cutting blast that swept around 

 the station corner as though Boreas 

 himself was in charge. 



"Yes, there it is," Nimrod said 

 in a resigned voice as we looked 

 through the window of an antique 

 omnibus upholstered in red-and- 

 green Brussels carpet, and read a 

 legend "The Palace Hotel" in brazen 

 black letters on the false third-story 

 front of a frame two-story clap- 

 board structure that ran back on 

 its narrow site like a train of cars. 

 We knew already that the ground 

 floor windows gave light to an 

 "office" where was the clerk's desk 

 and billboard, and which served for 

 the lounging room. Wooden arm 

 chairs, their backs reinforced by iron 

 rods, to accommodate the habit of 

 continual tilting by their occupants, 

 were placed against the wall and 



