The porter with the owl eyes pushed the dozing porter. “Time to get the beds down, Tim,” he said. Tim got up slowly and they took their coffee cans and trudged down the aisle toward the Pullman section. As they reached the door it opened and the lady who had transferred from Dearborn came into the car. The two porters stood on either side of the aisle and let her pass between them. They wore white jackets with silver buttons which were embossed: “Pullman Company.” Together with their caps with silver plates, which also read “Pullman Porter,” and black pants, they looked like two painted black statues before the entrance to some fine suburban home. She did not notice them, but passed directly through the car, leaving behind her a scent of something sweet and strong.

When she entered the club car the woman with the Dutch bob was sitting at the bar talking to John Perry, the bartender, who stood behind the bar leaning with his arms on its waxed red surface. They were very close and the Dutch woman was smiling mysteriously. There was no one else in the car. The Dearborn lady seated herself at a deuce near the far end of the car and began to stare at John Perry as he said something low and soft and smile-provoking to the painted thing on the stool across from him. The Dearborn lady cleared her throat. John Perry placed his dark, thick hand closer to the other, softer hand on the bar and did not look up. The painted woman made a throaty chuckle, like the confusing sound one might hear near a car parked by a frog pond on a summer night.

“I want some service,” the lady at the end of the car finally said. “I’ve been here for ten minutes now and I want some service.”

The bartender looked annoyed as he went over to her table. “What’ll it be, lady?” he said. His voice was deep and smooth and almost as greasy as the painted woman’s lips; and it had that familiar ring of professional servitude, which is peculiar to small, serving people who like their work.

“I want a Benedictine and brandy.”

“No Benedictine. This is a train, lady.”

She paused. “I’ll have a crème de menthe then.”

“We don’t have that neither.”

“Try bourbon and water, honey,” the woman at the bar said, and she lifted her glass for the woman to see. “He makes it very good. I’m going to have another one myself.” She looked at the bartender as she pushed a five-dollar bill across the bar. “Make yourself one too,” she told him.

The lady at the deuce looked at her fiercely.