Turning, I saw the black-clothed figure through the dingy glass of the door; then the door pushed open and he entered, older than I remember, the white patches of hair hanging damply from under the old Panama hat, the steel-rimmed spectacles dangerously loose on the nose and the pale eyes behind, the shoulders stooped and drawn together as though pulled by the obscene, disjunctive, careful weight of the belly, as though it were the heavy tray, or satchel, worn by some hawker on a street corner. The black coat did not button across the belly.

He stood there, blinking gravely to me, apparently not recognizing me, for he had come from the last sunshine into the dimness of the restaurant.

"Good evening, _seٌor__," the old Mexican said to the Scholarly Attorney.

"_Buenas tardes__," the woman said.

The Scholarly Attorney took off his Panama and turned to the woman, and bowed slightly, with a motion of the head which stirred suddenly in my mind the picture of the long room in the white house by the sea, the picture of a man, the same but different, younger, the hair not gray, in that room. "Good evening," he said to the woman, and then turning to the old Mexican, repeated, "Good evening, sir."

The old Mexican pointed at me, and said, "He waits."

At that the Scholarly Attorney first, I believe, really observed me. But he did not recognize me, blinking at me in the dimness. Certainly he had no reason to expect to find me there.

"Hello," I said, "don't you know me?"

"Yes," he said, and continued to peer at me. He offered me his hand, and I took it, It was clammy in my grasp.

"Let's get out of here," I said.

"Do you want the bread?" the old Mexican asked.

The Scholarly Attorney turned to him. "Yes, thank you. If it is convenient."

The Mexican rose, went to the end of the counter, and took a largish brown paper bag full of something, and handed it to the other.

"Thank you," the Scholarly Attorney said, "thank you very much, sir."

"_De nada__," the Mexican said, bowing.

"I wish you a good evening," the Scholarly Attorney said, and bowed to the man, then to the woman, with an inclination of the head which again twitched the old recollection in me of the room in the white house by the sea.

Then I followed him out of the restaurant, into the street. Across the street lay the little park of trampled brown grass, now glistening with moisture, where the bums sat on benches and the pigeons cooed softly like an easy conscience and defecated in delicate little lime-white pinches on the cement around the fountain. I looked at the pigeons, then at the bulged-open bag, which, I observed, was full of bread crusts. "Are you going to feed the pigeons?" I asked.

"No, it is for George," he said, moving toward the doorway that led above.

"You keeping a dog?"

"No," he said, and led the way into the vestibule, and up the wooden stairs.

"What is George, then? A parrot?"

"No," he said, wheezily, for the steps were steep, "George is an unfortunate."

That meant, I remembered, a bum. An unfortunate is a bum who is fortunate enough to get his foot inside a softy's door and stay there. If he gets a good berth he is promoted from bum to unfortunate. The Scholarly Attorney had, on several occasions before, taken in unfortunates. One unfortunate had popped the organist down at the mission where the Scholarly Attorney operated. Another unfortunate had lifted his watch and Phi Beta Kappa key.

So George was another unfortunate. I looked at the bread, and said, "Well, he must be pretty unfortunate if that's what he's got to eat.

"He eats some of it," the Scholarly Attorney said, "but that is almost accidental. He uses it in his work. But some of it slips down, I am sure, and that is why he is never hungry. Except for sweets," he added.

"How in God's name does he use bread crusts in his work and the bread crusts slip down his throat?"

"Do not take the name of the Lord in vain," he said. And added, "George's work, it's very clever. And artistic. You will see."

I saw. We got to the top of the second flight, turned in the narrow hall under cracked skylight, and entered a door. There was what I took to be George, in one corner of the big, sparsely furnished room, sitting tailor-fashion on a piece of old blanket, with a couple of big mixing bowls in front of him., and a big piece of plywood about two feet by four lying on the floor by him.

George looked up when we came in and said, "I ain't got any more bread."

"Here it is," the Scholarly Attorney said, and took the brown bag to him.

George emptied the crusts into one of the bowls, then stuck a piece into his mouth and began to chew, soberly and purposively. He was a fair-sized, muscular man, with a hell of a strong-looking neck, and the tendons in his neck worked and pulled slickly while he chewed. He had yellow hair, almost gone, and a smooth, flat face with blue eyes. While he chewed he just looked straight ahead at a spot cross the room.

"What does he do that for?" I asked.

"He's making an angel."

"Well," I said. And just then George leaned forward over one of the bowls and let the thoroughly masticated bread drop from his mouth into the bowl. The he put another crust into his mouth.

"There is one he has finished," the Scholarly Attorney said, and pointed at another corner of the room, where another piece of plywood was propped up. I went to examine it. At one end, the figure of an angel, with wings and flowing drapery, had been executed in bas-relief in what looked like putty. "That one is just drying," the Scholarly Attorney said. "When it gets good and dry, he'll color it. Then he'll shellac it. Then the board will be painted and a motto put on it."

"Very pretty," I said.

"He makes statues of angels, too. See," and he went to a kitchen safe, and opened it, to expose a shelf of dishes and pots and another with an array of gaudy angels.

I examined the angels. While I did so, the Scholarly Attorney took a can of soup, a loaf of bread, and some soft butter out of the safe, put them on the table in the center of the room, and lighted one of the burners on the two-burner plate in the corner. "Will you join me in my supper?" he asked.

"No, thanks," I said, and continued to stare at the angels.

"He sometimes sells them on the street," he said, pouring out his soup into a stewpan, "but he can't bear to sell the best ones."

"Are these the best ones?" I asked.

"Yes," the Scholarly Attorney replied. And added, "They are pretty good, aren't they?"

I said, "Yes," for there wasn't anything else to say. Then' looking at the artist, asked, "Doesn't he make anything but angels? What about Kewpie dolls and bulldogs?"

"He makes angels. Because of what happened."

"What happened?"

"His wife," the Scholarly Attorney said, stirring the soup in the stewpan. "On account of her he makes angels. They were in a circus, you know."

"No, I didn't know."

"Yes, they were what you call aerialists. She did the angel act. She had large white wings, George said."

"White wings," George said through the bread, but it was a sound like _wite whungs__, and he fluttered his big hands like wings, and smiled.

"She fell down a long way with white wings which fluttered as though she were flying," the Scholarly Attorney continued, explaining patiently.

And one day the rope broke," I affirmed.

"Something went wrong with the apparatus. It affected George very deeply."

"How about the way it affected her?"

The old man ignored my wit, and said, "He got so he could not perform his act."

"What was his act?"

"He was the man who got hanged."

"Oh," I said, and looked at George. That accounted for the big neck, no doubt. Then, "Did the apparatus go wrong with him and choke him or something?"