Falk always connected
this noise with the inn and the power or enchantment of the inn that held
him--"Black Enchantment," perhaps. He was to hear that struggling chatter
of the river until his dying day.
He pushed through the passage and turned to the right into the bar. A damp
day like this always served Hogg's trade. The gas was lit and sizzled
overhead with a noise as though it commented ironically on the fatuity of
the human beings beneath it. The room was full, but most of the men--
seamen, loafers, a country man or two--crowded up to the bar. Falk crossed
to a table in the corner near the window, his accustomed seat. No one
seemed to notice him, but soon Hogg, stout and smiling, came over to him.
No one had ever seen Samuel Hogg out of temper--no, never, not even when
there had been fighting in the place and he had been compelled to eject
men, by force of arms, through the doors and windows. There had not been
many fights there. Men were afraid of him, in spite of his imperturbable
good temper. Men said of him that he would stick at nothing, although what
exactly was meant by that no one knew.
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