Beside Dan Barry he stopped and watched the agile hands at work.

There was a change in the position of Barry now, for he had taken the chair facing the door and the entire crowd; Buck Daniels stood opposite.

The horsehair plied back and forth.

And Daniels noted the hands, lean, tapering like the fingers of a girl of sixteen.

They were perfectly steady; they were the hands of one who had struggled, in life, with no greater foe than ennui.
"Dan," said Buck, and there was a quiver of excitement in his voice, like the tremor of a piano string long after it has been struck.