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The pavements are now in possession of crowds returning from the theatres, and at certain crossings is a rush for cable-cars going south. We turn down Quincy Street. It is still almost an hour before midnight. Simultaneously we notice a deep, wide entry of a business house, so deep that its inner corners are quite dry, and one of them is fairly shielded from the wind. With a mutual impulse we turn in, and crouch close together on the paved floor in the shade of the sheltered corner.

We sit in perfect silence for a time. Our teeth have begun again to chatter, and it is difficult to speak. Besides, we have nothing to say beyond the wish that we were fed and warmed and sheltered, and this is such a deepening longing to us both that we have begun to keep a reverent silence about it.

Not half a score of people pass us as we crouch there through a quarter of an hour or more, and none of them sees us, which is fortunate; for one of the number is a policeman, who walks down the other side, swinging his club in easy rhythm to his sauntering steps.