Lucy listened judiciously to the case of Mrs. Murphy versus the five dollars and gave judgment.
"She's a dirty old robber. I wish we could go somewhere else to live."
This evening ought to be the end of the old life now that she was a real dancer for money. A five-dollar start in a new room was better than paying Mrs. Murphy and being without a cent.
At seven that same morning Mae and Lucy leaned back on their chairs at Childs', replete. They had crept out at five thirty laden with a cardboard suitcase, paper bundles and the red makeup box, walking through the grey drizzle to Childs'. Two big twenty-five-cent breakfasts, and one ten-cent tip. Sixty cents gone already.
"It's a shame," said Lucy, "we didn't take the sheet, my costume will be crushed."
"Oh well, it'll press out."
"I feel sleepy." Lucy yawned and stretched in a long rhythmic gesture of contentment. Mae yawned too but with lips closed, lightheaded with fatigue and release from Mrs. Murphy who thank heavens went to Mass in another direction. But they couldn't sit in Childs' all day. The trouble with roominghouses though was you had to find one that wouldn't want a week's rent in advance and take a deposit, so they at least would have a dollar left for food. Maybe she should have taken a chance Mrs. Murphy wouldn't put them out—no, Mrs. Murphy never broke her rule about two weeks, pay up, or out. Maybe if she left Lucy in the railroad station with the things she could find some kind of work, dishwashing, to tide them over.
"Listen, dearest, let's go down to the rest room in the station, it won't look funny to sleep there with these things."
The wet dreary street leading to the railroad station was deserted. Creaking signs and pawnbrokers' balls dripped Sabbath benediction. A block from the station stood the sooty grey stone Crofter Hotel, its windows lined by dark mission chairs with greasy green cushions awaiting commercial travelers who, during empty lonesome hours, sat worrying about business while watching the chippies go by. On the sidewalk a Chinaman flushed brass spittoons, chalices of virile ennui temporarily removed from the honeycomb white and slate tiles of the lobby floor. Many travelers had wondered, without investigating, if the dusty potted palms were real. The lobby, in its greenish light, seemed a giant aquarium containing, between marble pillars and plants, specimens of a strange floating population.
