She was laughing, rather coarsely. We
stepped aside to let her pass out into the night.
"So the manager said he'd give me $50 more on the road," she was saying,
"and I said he would have to make it $75 more--gracious! what's this?"
She had stumbled over something just outside the threshold of the stage
door. Her companion stooped, while the actress jumped aside and looked down
at the large black object with both fright and curiosity.
"It's a man," said the maid; "drunk, or asleep, or dead. He looks frozen.
He's a tramp, I guess; hurry away! We'll tell the policeman on the corner."
The actress passed on, with a final look of half-aversion, half-pity, at
the prostrate body. The comedian and I were both by that body within two
seconds.
"Frozen or starved, sure!" said the comedian. "Poor beggar! Look at his
straw hat. Observe his death-clutch on the cane."
From down the alley came two sounds: one was a policeman's approaching
footsteps; the other, of a woman's laughter. What, to be sure, was the dead
or drunken body of an unknown vagabond to her?
And it seems strange that I, who never exchanged speech with either the
woman or the man, was the only one in the world who might recognize in the
momentary contact of the living with the dead, a dramatic situation.
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