Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand [213]
“And he told you nothing else?”
“Nothing else. This was nine years ago. Last spring, I went to visit my brother who lives in Cheyenne. One afternoon, he took the family out for a long drive. We went up into pretty wild country, high in the Rockies, and we stopped at a roadside diner. There was a distinguished, gray-haired man behind the counter. I kept staring at him while he fixed our sandwiches and coffee, because I knew that I had seen his face before, but could not remember where. We drove on, we were miles away from the diner, when I remembered. You’d better go there. It’s on Route 86, in the mountains, west of Cheyenne, near a small industrial settlement by the Lennox Copper Foundry. It seems strange, but I’m certain of it: the cook in that diner is the man I saw at the railroad station with my husband’s young idol.”
The diner stood on the summit of a long, hard climb. Its glass walls spread a coat of polish over the view of rocks and pines descending in broken ledges to the sunset. It was dark below, but an even, glowing light still remained in the diner, as in a small pool left behind by a receding tide.
Dagny sat at the end of the counter, eating a hamburger sandwich. It was the best-cooked food she had ever tasted, the product of simple ingredients and of an unusual skill. Two workers were finishing their dinner; she was waiting for them to depart.
She studied the man behind the counter. He was slender and tall; he had an air of distinction that belonged in an ancient castle or in the inner office of a bank; but his peculiar quality came from the fact that he made the distinction seem appropriate here, behind the counter of a diner. He wore a cook’s white jacket as if it were a full-dress suit. There was an expert competence in his manner of working; his movements were easy, intelligently economical. He had a lean face and gray hair that blended in tone with the cold blue of his eyes; somewhere beyond his look of courteous sternness, there was a note of humor, so faint that it vanished if one tried to discern it.
The two workers finished, paid and departed, each leaving a dime for a tip. She watched the man as he removed their dishes, put the dimes into the pocket of his white jacket, wiped the counter, working with swift precision. Then he turned and looked at her. It was an impersonal glance, not intended to invite conversation; but she felt certain that he had long since noted her New York suit, her high-heeled pumps, her air of being a woman who did not waste her time; his cold, observant eyes seemed to tell her that he knew she did not belong here and that he was waiting to discover her purpose.
“How is business?” she asked.
“Pretty bad. They’re going to close the Lennox Foundry next week, so I’ll have to close soon, too, and move on.” His voice was clear, impersonally cordial.
“Where to?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“What sort of thing do you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. I’m thinking of opening a garage, if I can find the right spot in some town.”
“Oh no! You’re too good at your job to change it. You shouldn’t want to be anything but a cook.”
A strange, fine smile moved the curve of his mouth. “No?” he asked courteously.
“No! How would you like a job in New York?” He looked at her, astonished. “I’m serious. I can give you a job on a big railroad, in charge of the dining-car department.”
“May I ask why you should want to?”
She raised the hamburger sandwich in its white paper napkin. “There’s one of the reasons.”
“Thank you. What are the others?”
“I don’t suppose you’ve lived in a big city, or you’d know how miserably difficult it is to find any competent men for any job whatever.”
“I know a little about that.”
“Well? How about it, then? Would you like a job in New