noon
She would have come closer to him but he danced away and only hunted for her soul with his brown Celtic eyes . And because David had asked for it and they loved the boy , the old men in the orchestra played the waltz over and over again , and at the end the dancers clapped their hands for an encore , and when the chorus began they sang it dancing , and the boy found the voice which cheered the `` Men of Harlech , '' the sweet , cadent voice of his race , and let out his heart in the words . When he led her to a seat , the blonde had tears on her eyelashes as she choked a `` good-by , Dave '' to him , but he turned away without answering her and went to find his next partner . It was growing late and the crowd soon went down the long , dark stairway leading from Imperial Hall , into the moonlight and down the street , singing and humming and whistling `` Love 's Golden Dream , '' and the next day they and the town and the band came down to the noon train to see the conquering hero go . It was lonesome in the office after David went , and his music-box in the corner was dumb , for we could n't find the brass lever for it , though the printers and the reporters hunted in his trunk and in every place they could think of . But the lonesomest things in the world for him were the machines . The big press grew sulky and kept breaking the web , and his linotype took to absorbing castor-oil as if it were a kind of hasheesh .