brute grown now so strong that Vandover could not longer resist it—­the brute that had long since destroyed all his finer qualities but that still demanded to be fed, still demanded to live.  All the little money that Vandover had saved during the day he spent that night among the coffee houses, the restaurants, and the saloons of the Barbary Coast, continuing to eat even after his hunger was satisfied.  Toward daylight he returned to his room, and all dressed as he was flung himself face downward among the coarse blankets and greasy counterpane.  For nearly eight hours he slept profoundly, with long snores, prone, inert, crammed and gorged with food.

It was the middle of Sunday afternoon when he awoke.  He roused himself and going over to the Plaza sat for a long while upon one of the benches.  It was a very bright afternoon and Vandover sat motionless for a long time in the sun while his heavy meal digested, very happy, content merely to be warm, to be well fed, to be comfortable.

Chapter Eighteen

That winter passed, then the summer; September and October came and went, and by the middle of November the rains set in.  One very wet afternoon toward the end of the month Charlie Geary sat at his desk in his own private office.  He was unoccupied for the moment, leaning back in his swivel chair, his feet on the table, smoking a cigar.  Geary had broken from his old-time habit of smoking only so many cigars as he could pay for by saving carfare.  He was doing so well now that he could afford to smoke whenever he chose.  He was still with the great firm of Beale & Storey, and while not in the partnership as yet, had worked up to the position of an assistant.  He had cases of his own now, a great many of them, for the most part damage suits against that certain enormous corporation whom it was said was ruining the city and entire state.  Geary posed as one of its bitterest enemies, pushing each suit brought against it with a tireless energy, with a zeal that was almost vindictive.  He began to fit into his own niche, in the eyes of the public, and just in proportion as the corporation was hated, Geary was admired.  Money came to him very fast.  He was hardly thirty at this time, but could already be called a rich man.

His “deal” with Vandover had given him a taste for real estate, and now and then, with the greatest caution, he made a few discreet investments.  At present he had just completed a row of small cottages across the street from the boot and shoe factory.  The cottages held two rooms and a large kitchen.  Geary had calculated that the boot and shoe concern would employ nearly a thousand operatives, and he had built his row with the view of accommodating a few of them who had families and who desired to live near the factory.  His agents were Adams & Brunt.