"" .
The young waiter is perhaps the antagonist of the story though we are never provided with a clearly defined protagonist. However, at least from some points of view the older waiter and the old man may both be viewable as a protagonist in some ways. The younger waiter is impulsive and in a hurry, he has no real respect for the older men's desire to stay in a place that is free of darkness and loneliness. He argues several times that the old man is something he is not; saying that he is lonely, that a wife would do him no good, and that he is nasty. The older waiter always responds with simple nearly reciprocal answers that the old man is not what he seems to be. Hemingway even goes so far as to describe the young man as stupid, "speaking with that omission of syntax stupid people employ when talking to drunken people or foreigners,"" when he sends the old man away from the café. However he does once show a brief moment of understanding when the older waiter questions him as to why he sent the old man away, questioning the younger, "What is an hour?- The younger man replies "More to me than to him."" Continuing to say that the old man could buy a bottle and drink at home, and when the older waiter pushes that drinking at home and at the café are not the same, he agrees "He did not wish to be unjust. He was only in a hurry."".
The last important character is the older waiter, and he is Hemingway's mouthpiece. He is the character that Hemingway uses to reveal his beliefs on the nature of the world, and it may be reasonably assumed that the man may in fact be Hemingway himself, or at the very least a character that Hemingway found himself in as it was created. The older waiter is described as being unable, or perhaps unwilling to sleep, believing that he has insomnia, "After all he said to himself, it is probably only insomnia."" But it is very plausible to believe that he is merely afraid of sleep, of the loneliness of returning to his home to lie in bed until daylight.