Denry ran upstairs again, in search of more amenable material. Some
twenty men in various sou'-westers and other headgear were eating thick
slices of bread and butter and drinking hot coffee, which with foresight
had been prepared for them in the pier buffet. A few had preferred
whisky. The whole crowd was now under the lee of the pavilion, and it
constituted a spectacle which Denry said to himself he should refer to
in his article as "Rembrandtesque." For a few moments he could not
descry Ruth and Nellie in the gloom. Then he saw the indubitable form of
his betrothed at a penny-in-the-slot machine, and the indubitable form
of Nellie at another penny-in-the-slot machine. And then he could hear
the click-click-click of the machines, working rapidly. And his thoughts
took a new direction.
Presently Ruth ran with blithe gracefulness from her machine and
commenced a generous distribution of packets to the members of the
crews. There was neither calculation nor exact justice in her
generosity. She dropped packets on to heroic knees with a splendid
gesture of largesse. Some packets even fell on the floor. But she did
not mind.
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