# The Turmoil
Booth Tarkington

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The Turmoil by Booth Tarkington: Booth Tarkington
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    The Turmoil.  A novel by Booth Tarkington
    1915.

    To Laurel.

    There is a midland city in the heart of fair, open country, a dirty and
    wonderful city nesting dingily in the fog of its own smoke.  The stranger
    must feel the dirt before he feels the wonder, for the dirt will be upon him
    instantly.  It will be upon him and within him, since he must breathe it, and
    he may care for no further proof that wealth is here better loved than
    cleanliness; but whether he cares or not, the negligently tended streets
    incessantly press home the point, and so do the flecked and grimy citizens. At
    a breeze he must smother in the whirlpools of dust, and if he should decline
    at any time to inhale the smoke he has the meager alternative of suicide.

    The smoke is like the bad breath of a giant panting for more and more riches.
    He gets them and pants the fiercer, smelling and swelling prodigiously.  He
    has a voice, a hoarse voice, hot and rapacious trained to one tune:  "Wealth!
    I will get Wealth I will make Wealth!  I will sell Wealth for more Wealth! My
    house shall be dirty, my garment shall be dirty, and I will foul my neighbor
    so that he cannot be clean--but I will get Wealth!  There shall be no clean
    thing about me:  my wife shall be dirty and my child shall be dirty, but I
    will get Wealth!"  And yet it is not wealth that he is so greedy for: what the
    giant really wants is hasty riches.  To get these he squanders wealth upon the
    four winds, for wealth is in the smoke.

    Not so long ago as a generation, there was no panting giant here, no heaving,
    grimy city;  there was but a pleasant big town of neighborly people who had
    understanding of one another, being, on the whole, much of the same type.  It
    was a leisurely and kindly place--"homelike," it was called--and when the
    visitor had been taken through the State Asylum for the Insane and made to
    appreciate the view of the cemetery from a little hill, his host's duty as
    Baedeker was done.  The good burghers were given to jogging comfortably about
    in phaetons or in surreys for a family drive on Sunday.  No one was very rich;
    few were very poor; the air was clean, and there was time to live.

    But there was a spirit abroad in the land, and it was strong here as
    elsewhere--a spirit that had moved in the depths of the American soil and
    labored there, sweating, till it stirred the surface, rove the mountains, and
    emerged, tangible and monstrous, the god of all good American hearts--
    Bigness.  And that god wrought the panting giant.

    In the souls of the burghers there had always been the profound longing for
    size.  Year by year the longing increased until it became an accumulated
    force:  We must Grow!  We must be Big!  We must be Bigger!  Bigness means
    Money!  And the thing began to happen;  their longing became a mighty Will. We
    must be Bigger!  Bigger!  Bigger!  Get people here!  Coax them here! Bribe
    them!  Swindle them into coming, if you must, but get them!  Shout them into
    coming!  Deafen them into coming!  Any kind of people; all kinds of people!
    We must be Bigger!  Blow!  Boost!  Brag!  Kill the fault-finder! Scream and
    bellow to the Most High:  Bigness is patriotism and honor! Bigness is love and
    life and happiness!  Bigness is Money!  We want Bigness!

    They got it.  From all the states the people came; thinly at first, and
    slowly, but faster and faster in thicker and thicker swarms as the quick years
    went by.  White people came, and black people and brown people and yellow
    people; the negroes came from the South by the thousands and thousands,
    multiplying by other thousands and thousands faster than they could die. From
    the four quarters of the earth the people came, the broken and the unbroken,
    the tame and the wild--Germans, Irish, Italians, Hungarians, Scotch, Welsh,
    English, French, Swiss, Swedes, Norwegians, Greeks, Poles, Russian Jews,
    Dalmatians, Armenians, Rumanians, Servians, Persians, Syrians, Japanese,
    Chinese, Turks, and every hybrid that these could propagate.  And if there
    were no Eskimos nor Patagonians, what other human strain that earth might
    furnish failed to swim and bubble in this crucible?

    With Bigness came the new machinery and the rush; the streets began to roar
    and rattle, the houses to tremble; the pavements were worn under the tread of
    hurrying multitudes.  The old, leisurely, quizzical look of the faces was lost
    in something harder and warier; and a cockney type began to emerge
    discernibly--a cynical young mongrel, barbaric of feature, muscular and
    cunning; dressed in good fabrics fashioned apparently in imitation of the
    sketches drawn by newspaper comedians.  The female of his kind came with him
    --a pale girl, shoddy and a little rouged; and they communicated in a nasal
    argot, mainly insolences and elisions.  Nay, the common speech of the people
    showed change:  in place of the old midland vernacular, irregular but clean,
    and not unwholesomely drawling, a jerky dialect of coined metaphors began to
    be heard, held together by GUNNAS and GOTTAS and much fostered by the public
    journals.

    The city piled itself high in the center, tower on tower for a nucleus, and
    spread itself out over the plain, mile after mile; and in its vitals, like
    benevolent bacilli contending with malevolent in the body of a man, missions
    and refuges offered what resistance they might to the saloons and all the
    hells that cities house and shelter.  Temptation and ruin were ready
    commodities on the market for purchase by the venturesome; highwaymen walked
    the streets at night and sometimes killed; snatching thieves were busy
    everywhere in the dusk; while house-breakers were a common apprehension and
    frequent reality.  Life itself was somewhat safer from intentional destruction
    than it was in medieval Rome during a faction war--though the Roman murderer
    was more like to pay for his deed--but death or mutilation beneath the wheels
    lay in ambush at every crossing.

    The politicians let the people make all the laws they liked; it did not matter
    much, and the taxes went up, which is good for politicians. Law-making was a
    pastime of the people; nothing pleased them more.  Singular fermentation of
    their humor, they even had laws forbidding dangerous speed. More marvelous
    still, they had a law forbidding smoke!  They forbade chimneys to smoke and
    they forbade cigarettes to smoke.  They made laws for all things and forgot
    them immediately; though sometimes they would remember after a while, and
    hurry to make new laws that the old laws should be enforced--and then forget
    both new and old.  Wherever enforcement threatened Money or Votes --or
    wherever it was too much to bother--it became a joke.  Influence was the law.

    So the place grew.  And it grew strong.  Straightway when he came, each man
    fell to the same worship:

            Give me of thyself, O Bigness:
            Power to get more power!
            Riches to get more riches!
            Give me of thy sweat that I may sweat more!
            Give me Bigness to get more Bigness to myself,
            O Bigness, for Thine is the Power and the Glory!
            And there is no end but Bigness, ever and for ever!

    The Sheridan Building was the biggest skyscraper; the Sheridan Trust Company
    was the biggest of its kind, and Sheridan himself had been the biggest builder
    and breaker and truster and buster under the smoke.  He had come from a
    country cross-roads, at the beginning of the growth, and he had gone up and
    down in the booms and relapses of that period; but each time he went down he
    rebounded a little higher, until finally, after a year of overwork and
    anxiety--the latter not decreased by a chance, remote but possible, of
    recuperation from the former in the penitentiary--he found himself on top,
    with solid substance under his feet; and thereafter "played it safe."  But his
    hunger to get was unabated, for it was in the very bones of him and grew
    fiercer.

    He was the city incarnate.  He loved it, calling it God's country, as he
    called the smoke Prosperity, breathing the dingy cloud with relish.  And when
    soot fell upon his cuff he chuckled; he could have kissed it. "It's good! It's
    good!" he said, and smacked his lips in gusto.  "Good, clean soot; it's our
    life-blood, God bless it!"  The smoke was one of his great enthusiasms; he
    laughed at a committee of plaintive housewives who called to beg his aid
    against it.  "Smoke's what brings your husbands' money home on Saturday night,
    "he told them, jovially.  "Smoke may hurt your little shrubberies in the front
    yard some, but it's the catarrhal climate and the adenoids that starts your
    chuldern coughing.  Smoke makes the climate better.  Smoke means good health:
    it makes the people wash more.  They have to wash so much they wash off the
    microbes.  You go home and ask your husbands what smoke puts in their pockets
    out o' the pay-roll--and you'll come around next time to get me to turn out
    more smoke instead o' chokin' it off!"

    It was Narcissism in him to love the city so well; he saw his reflection in
    it; and, like it, he was grimy, big, careless, rich, strong, and unquenchably
    optimistic.  From the deepest of his inside all the way out he believed it was
    the finest city in the world.  "Finest" was his word.  He thought of it as his
    city as he thought of his family as his family; and just as profoundly
    believed his city to be the finest city in the world, so did he believe his
    family to be--in spite of his son Bibbs--the finest family in the world. As a
    matter of fact, he knew nothing worth knowing about either.

    Bibbs Sheridan was a musing sort of boy, poor in health, and considered the
    failure--the "odd one"--of the family.  Born during that most dangerous and
    anxious of the early years, when the mother fretted and the father took his
    chance, he was an ill-nourished baby, and grew meagerly, only lengthwise,
    through a feeble childhood.  At his christening he was committed for life to
    "Bibbs" mainly through lack of imagination on his mother's part, for though it
    was her maiden name, she had no strong affection for it; but it was "her turn"
    to name the baby, and, as she explained later, she "couldn't think of anything
    else she liked AT ALL!"  She offered this explanation one day when the sickly
    boy was nine and after a long fit of brooding had demanded some reason for his
    name's being Bibbs.  He requested then with unwonted vehemence to be allowed
    to exchange names with his older brother, Roscoe Conkling Sheridan, or with
    the oldest, James Sheridan, Junior, and upon being refused went down into the
    cellar and remained there the rest of that day.  And the cook, descending
    toward dusk, reported that he had vanished; but a search revealed that he was
    in the coal-pile, completely covered and still burrowing. Removed by force and
    carried upstairs, he maintained a cryptic demeanor, refusing to utter a
    syllable of explanation, even under the lash.  This obvious thing was wholly a
    mystery to both parents; the mother was nonplussed, failed to trace and
    connect; and the father regarded his son as a stubborn and mysterious fool, an
    impression not effaced as the years went by.

    At twenty-two, Bibbs was physically no more than the outer scaffolding of a
    man, waiting for the building to begin inside--a long-shanked, long-faced,
    rickety youth, sallow and hollow and haggard, dark-haired and dark-eyed, with
    a peculiar expression of countenance; indeed, at first sight of Bibbs Sheridan
    a stranger might well be solicitous, for he seemed upon the point of tears.
    But to a slightly longer gaze, not grief, but mirth, was revealed as his
    emotion; while a more searching scrutiny was proportionately more puzzling--he
    seemed about to burst out crying or to burst out laughing, one or the other,
    inevitably, but it was impossible to decide which.  And Bibbs never, on any
    occassion of his life, either laughed aloud or wept.

    He was a "disappointment" to his father.  At least that was the parent's word
    --a confirmed and established word after his first attempt to make a "business
    man" of the boy.  He sent Bibbs to "begin at the bottom and learn from the
    ground up" in the machine-shop of the Sheridan Automatic Pump Works, and at
    the end of six months the family physician sent Bibbs to begin at the bottom
    and learn from the ground up in a sanitarium.

    "You needn't worry, mamma," Sheridan told his wife. "There's nothin' the
    matter with Bibbs except he hates work so much it makes him sick.  I put him
    in the machine-shop, and I guess I know what I'm doin' about as well as the
    next man.  Ole Doc Gurney always was one o' them nutty alarmists.  Does he
    think I'd do anything 'd be bad for my own flesh and blood?  He makes me
    tired!"

    Anything except perfectly definite health or perfectly definite disease was
    incomprehensible to Sheridan.  He had a genuine conviction that lack of
    physical persistence in any task involving money must be due to some subtle
    weakness of character itself, to some profound shiftlessness or slyness.  He
    understood typhoid fever, pheumonia, and appendicitis--one had them, and
    either died or got over them and went back to work--but when the word
    "nervous" appeared in a diagnosis he became honestly suspicious: he had the
    feeling that there was something contemptible about it, that there was a
    nigger in the wood-pile somewhere.

    "Look at me," he said.  "Look at what I did at his age!  Why, when I was
    twenty years old, wasn't I up every morning at four o'clock choppin' wood--
    yes! and out in the dark and the snow--to build a fire in a country grocery
    store?  And here Bibbs has to go and have a DOCTOR because he can't--Pho! it
    makes me tired!  If he'd gone at it like a man he wouldn't be sick."

    He paced the bedroom--the usual setting for such parental discussions--in his
    nightgown, shaking his big, grizzled head and gesticulating to his bedded
    spouse.  "My Lord!" he said.  "If a little, teeny bit o' work like this is too
    much for him, why, he ain't fit for anything!  It's nine-tenths imagination,
    and the rest of it--well, I won't say it's deliberate, but I WOULD like to
    know just how much of it's put on!"

    "Bibbs didn't want the doctor," said Mrs. Sheridan.  "It was when he was here
    to dinner that night, and noticed how he couldn't eat anything.  Honey, you
    better come to bed."

    "Eat!" he snorted.  "Eat! It's work that makes men eat!  And it's imagination
    that keeps people from eatin'.  Busy men don't get time for that kind of
    imagination; and there's another thing you'll notice about good health, if
    you'll take the trouble to look around you, Mrs. Sheridan: busy men haven't
    got time to be sick and they don't GET sick.  You just think it over and
    you'll find that ninety-nine per cent. of the sick people you know are either
    women or loafers.  Yes, ma'am!"

    "Honey," she said again, drowsily, "you better come to bed."

    "Look at the other boys," her husband bade her.  "Look at Jim and Roscoe. Look
    at how THEY work!  There isn't a shiftless bone in their bodies.  Work never
    made Jim or Roscoe sick.  Jim takes half the load off my shoulders already.
    Right now there isn't a harder-workin', brighter business man in this city
    than Jim.  I've pushed him, but he give me something to push AGAINST.  You
    can't push 'nervous dyspepsia'!  And look at Roscoe; just LOOK at what that
    boy's done for himself, and barely twenty-seven years old-- married, got a
    fine wife, and ready to build for himself with his own money, when I put up
    the New House for you and Edie."

    "Papa, you'll catch cold in your bare feet," she murmured.  "You better come
    to bed."

    "And I'm just as proud of Edie, for a girl," he continued, emphatically, "as I
    am of Jim and Roscoe for boys.  She'll make some man a mighty good wife when
    the time comes.  She's the prettiest and talentedest girl in the United
    States!  Look at that poem she wrote when she was in school and took the prize
    with; it's the best poem I ever read in my life, and she'd never even tried to
    write one before.  It's the finest thing I ever read, and R. T. Bloss said so,
    too; and I guess he's a good enough literary judge for me-- turns out more
    advertisin' liter'cher than any man in the city.  I tell you she's smart!
    Look at the way she worked me to get me to promise the New House--and I guess
    you had your finger in that, too, mamma!  This old shack's good enough for me,
    but you and little Edie 'll have to have your way. I'll get behind her and
    push her the same as I will Jim and Roscoe.  I tell you I'm mighty proud o'
    them three chuldern!  But Bibbs--"  He paused, shaking his head.  "Honest,
    mamma, when I talk to men that got ALL their boys doin' well and worth their
    salt, why, I have to keep my mind on Jim and Roscoe and forget about Bibbs."

    Mrs. Sheridan tossed her head fretfully upon the pillow.  "You did the best
    you could, papa," she said, impatiently, "so come to bed and quit reproachin'
    youself for it."

    He glared at her indignantly.  "Reproachin' myself!" he snorted.  "I ain't
    doin' anything of the kind!  What in the name o' goodness would I want to
    reproach myself for?  And it wasn't the 'best I could,' either.  It was the
    best ANYBODY could!  I was givin' him a chance to show what was in him and
    make a man of himself--and here he goes and gets 'nervous dyspepsia' on me!"

    He went to the old-fashioned gas-fixture, turned out the light, and muttered
    his way morosely into bed.

    "What?" said his wife, crossly, bothered by a subsequent mumbling.

    "More like hook-worm, I said," he explained, speaking louder.  "I don't know
    what to do with him!"

    Beginning at the beginning and learning from the ground up was a long course
    for Bibbs at the sanitarium, with milk and "zwieback" as the basis of
    instruction; and the months were many and tiresome before he was considered
    near enough graduation to go for a walk leaning on a nurse and a cane.  These
    and subsequent months saw the planning, the building, and the completion of
    the New House; and it was to that abode of Bigness that Bibbs was brought when
    the cane, without the nurse, was found sufficient to his support.

    Edith met him at the station.  "Well, well, Bibbs!" she said, as he came
    slowly through the gates, the last of all the travelers from that train.  She
    gave his hand a brisk little shake, averting her eyes after a quick glance at
    him, and turning at once toward the passage to the street.  "Do you think they
    ought to 've let you come?  You certainly don't look well!"

    "But I certainly do look better," he returned, in a voice as slow as his gait;
    a drawl that was a necessity, for when Bibbs tried to speak quickly he
    stammered.  "Up to about a month ago it took two people to see me.  They had
    to get me in a line between 'em!"

    Edith did not turn her eyes directly toward him again, after her first quick
    glance; and her expression, in spite of her, showed a faint, troubled
    distaste, the look of a healthy person pressed by some obligation of business
    to visit a "bad" ward in a hospital.  She was nineteen, fair and slim, with
    small, unequal features, but a prettiness of color and a brilliancy of eyes
    that created a total impression close upon beauty.  Her movements were eager
    and restless: there was something about her, as kind old ladies say, that was
    very sweet; and there was something that was hurried and breathless.  This was
    new to Bibbs; it was a perceptible change since he had last seen her, and he
    bent upon her a steady, whimsical scrutiny as they stood at the curb, waiting
    for an automobile across the street to disengage itself from the traffic.

    "That's the new car," she said.  "Everything's new.  We've got four now,
    besides Jim's.  Roscoe's got two."

    "Edith, you look--" he began, and paused.

    "Oh, WE're all well," she said, briskly; and then, as if something in his tone
    had caught her as significant, "Well, HOW do I look, Bibbs?"

    "You look--"  He paused again, taking in the full length of her--her trim
    brown shoes, her scant, tapering, rough skirt, and her coat of brown and
    green, her long green tippet and her mad little rough hat in the mad mode--
    all suited to the October day.

    "How do I look?" she insisted.

    "You look," he answered, as his examination ended upon an incrusted watch of
    platinum and enamel at her wrist, "you look--expensive!"  That was a
    substitute for what he intended to say, for her constraint and preoccupation,
    manifested particularly in her keeping her direct glance away from him, did
    not seem to grant the privilege of impulsive intimacies.

    "I expect I am!" she laughed, and sidelong caught the direction of his glance.
    "Of course I oughtn't to wear it in the daytime--it's an evening thing, for
    the theater--by my day wrist-watch is out of gear.  Bobby Lamhorn broke it
    yesterday; he's a regular rowdy sometimes.  Do you want Claus to help you in?"

    "Oh no," said Bibbs.  "I'm alive."  And after a fit of panting subsequent to
    his climbing into the car unaided, he added, "Of course, I have to TELL
    people!"

    "We only got your telegram this morning," she said, as they began to move
    rapidly through the "wholesale district" neighboring the station.  "Mother
    said she'd hardly expected you this month."

    "They seemed to be through with me up there in the country," he explained,
    gently.  "At least they said they were, and they wouldn't keep me any longer,
    because so many really sick people wanted to get in.  They told me to go home
    --and I didn't have any place else to go.  It 'll be all right, Edith; I'll
    sit in the woodshed until after dark every day."

    "Pshaw!"  She laughed nervously.  "Of course we're all of us glad to have you
    back."

    "Yes?" he said.  "Father?"

    "Of course!  Didn't he write and tell you to come home?"  She did not turn to
    him with the question.  All the while she rode with her face directly forward.

    "No," he said; "father hasn't written."

    She flushed a little.  "I expect I ought to 've written sometime, or one of
    the boys--"

    "Oh no; that was all right."

    "You can't think how busy we've all been this year, Bibbs.  I often planned to
    write--and then, just as I was going to, something would turn up.  And I'm
    sure it's been just the same way with Jim and Roscoe.  Of course we knew mamma
    was writing often and--"

    "Of course!" he said, readily.  "There's a chunk of coal fallen on your glove,
    Edith.  Better flick it off before it smears.  My word! I'd almost forgotten
    how sooty it is here."

    "We've been having very bright weather this month--for us."  She blew the
    flake of soot into the air, seeming relieved.

    He looked up at the dingy sky, wherein hung the disconsolate sun like a cold
    tin pan nailed up in a smoke-house by some lunatic, for a decoration.  "Yes,"
    said Bibbs.  "It's very gay."  A few moments later, as they passed a corner,
    "Aren't we going home?" he asked.

    "Why, yes!"  Did you want to go somewhere else first?"

    "No.  Your new driver's taking us out of the way, isn't he?"

    "No.  This is right.  We're going straight home."

    "But we've passed the corner.  We always turned--"

    "Good gracious!" she cried.  "Didn't you know we'd moved?  Didn't you know we
    were in the New House?"

    "Why, no!" said Bibbs.  "Are you?"

    "We've been there a month!  Good gracious!  Didn't you know--"  She broke off,
    flushing again, and then went on hastily:  "Of course, mamma's never been so
    busy in her life; we ALL haven't had time to do anything but keep on the hop.
    Mamma couldn't even come to the station to-day.  Papa's got some of his
    business friends and people from around the OLD-house neighborhood coming
    to-night for a big dinner and 'house-warming'--dreadful kind of people--but
    mamma's got it all on her hands.  She's never sat down a MINUTE; and if she
    did, papa would have her up again before--"

    "Of course," said Bibbs.  "Do you like the new place, Edith?"

    "I don't like some of the things father WOULD have in it, but it's the finest
    house in town, and that ought to be good enough for me!  Papa bought one thing
    I like--a view of the Bay of Naples in oil that's perfectly beautiful; it's
    the first thing you see as you come in the front hall, and it's eleven feet
    long.  But he would have that old fruit picture we had in the Murphy Street
    house hung up in the new dining-room.  You remember it--a table and a
    watermelon sliced open, and a lot of rouged-looking apples and some shiny
    lemons, with two dead prairie-chickens on a chair?  He bought it at a
    furniture-store years and years ago, and he claims it's a finer picture than
    any they saw in the museums, that time he took mamma to Europe.  But it's
    horribly out of date to have those things in dining-rooms, and I caught Bobby
    Lamhorn giggling at it; and Sibyl made fun of it, too, with Bobby, and then
    told papa she agreed with him about its being such a fine thing, and said he
    did just right to insist on having it where he wanted it.  She makes me tired!
    Sibyl!"

    Edith's first constraint with her brother, amounting almost to awkwardness,
    vanished with this theme, though she still kept her full gaze always to the
    front, even in the extreme ardor of her denunciation of her sister-in-law.

    "SIBYL!" she repeated, with such heat and vigor that the name seemed to strike
    fire on her lips.  "I'd like to know why Roscoe couldn't have married somebody
    from HERE that would have done us some good!  He could have got in with Bobby
    Lamhorn years ago just as well as now, and Bobby 'd have introduced him to the
    nicest girls in town, but instead of that he had to go and pick up this Sibyl
    Rink!  I met some awfully nice people from her town when mamma and I were at
    Atlantic City, last spring, and not one had ever heard of the Rinks! Not even
    HEARD of 'em!"

    "I thought you were great friends with Sibyl," Bibbs said.

    "Up to the time I found her out!" the sister returned, with continuing
    vehemence.  "I've found out some things about Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan lately --"

    "It's only lately?"

    "Well--" Edith hesitated, her lips setting primly.  "Of course, I always did
    see that she never cared the snap of her little finger about ROSCOE!"

    "It seems," said Bibbs, in laconic protest, "that she married him."

    The sister emitted a shrill cry, to be interpreted as contemptuous laughter,
    and, in her emotion, spoke too impulsively:   "Why, she'd have married YOU!"

    "No, no," he said; "she couldn't be that bad!"

    "I didn't mean--" she began, distressed.  "I only meant--I didn't mean--"

    "Never mind, Edith," he consoled her.  "You see, she couldn't have married me,
    because I didn't know her; and besides, if she's as mercenary as all that
    she'd have been too clever.  The head doctor even had to lend me the money for
    my ticket home."

    "I didn't mean anything unpleasant about YOU," Edith babbled.  "I only meant I
    thought she was the kind of girl who was so simply crazy to marry somebody
    she'd have married anybody that asked her."

    "Yes, yes," said Bibbs, "it's all straight."  And, perceiving that his
    sister's expression was that of a person whose adroitness has set matters
    prefectly to rights, he chuckled silently.

    "Roscoe's perfectly lovely to her," she continued, a moment later.  "Too
    lovely!  If he'd wake up a little and lay down the law, some day, like a MAN,
    I guess she'd respect him more and learn to behave herself!"

    "'Behave'?"

    "Oh, well, I mean she's so insincere," said Edith, characteristically evasive
    when it came to stating the very point to which she had led, and in this not
    unique of her sex.

    Bibbs contented himself with a non-committal gesture.  "Business is crawling
    up the old streets," he said, his long, tremulous hand indicating a vasty
    structure in course of erection.  "The boarding-houses come first and then
    the--"

    "That isn't for shops," she informed him.  "That's a new investment of papa's
    --the 'Sheridan Apartments.'"

    "Well, well," he murmured.  "I supposed 'Sheridan' was almost well enough
    known here already."

    "Oh, we're well enough known ABOUT!" she said, impatiently.  "I guess there
    isn't a man, woman, child, or nigger baby in town that doesn't know who we
    are.  But we aren't in with the right people."

    "No!" he exclaimed.  "Who's all that?"

    "Who's all what?"

    "The 'right' people.'"

    "You know what I mean:  the best people, the old families--the people that
    have the real social position in this town and that know they've got it."

    Bibbs indulged in his silent chuckle again; he seemed greatly amused.  "I
    thought that the people who actually had the real what-you-may-call-it didn't
    know it," he said.  "I've always understood that it was very unsatisfactory,
    because if you thought about it you didn't have it, and if you had it you
    didn't know it."

    "That's just bosh," she retorted.  "They know it in this town, all right!  I
    found out a lot of things, long before we began to think of building out in
    this direction.  The right people in this town aren't always the
    society-column ones, and they mix around with outsiders, and they don't all
    belong to any one club--they're taken in all sorts into all their clubs--but
    they're a clan, just the same; and they have the clan feeling and they're just
    as much We, Us and Company as any crowd you read about anywhere in the world.
    Most of 'em were here long before papa came, and the grandfathers of the girls
    of my age knew each other, and--"

    "I see," Bibbs interrupted, gravely.  "Their ancestors fled together from many
    a stricken field, and Crusaders' blood flows in their veins.  I always
    understood the first house was built by an old party of the name of Vertrees
    who couldn't get along with Dan'l Boone, and hurried away to these parts
    because Dan'l wanted him to give back a gun he'd lent him."

    Edith gave a little ejaculation of alarm.  "You mustn't repeat that story,
    Bibbs, even if it's true.  The Vertreeses are THE best family, and of course
    the very oldest here;  they were an old family even before Mary Vertrees's
    great-great-grandfather came west and founded this settlement.  He came from
    Lynn, Massachusetts, and they have relatives there YET--some of the best
    people in Lynn!"

    "No!" exclaimed Bibbs, incredulously.

    "And there are other old families like the Vertreeses," she went on, not
    heeding him; "the Lamhorns and the Kittersbys and the J. Palmerston Smiths--"

    "Strange names to me," he interrupted.  "Poor things!  None of them have my
    acquaintance."

    "No, that's just it!" she cried.  "And papa had never even heard the name of
    Vertrees!  Mrs. Vertrees went with some anti-smoke committee to see him, and
    he told her that smoke was what made her husband bring home his wages from the
    pay-roll on Saturday night!  HE told us about it, and I thought I just
    couldn't live through the night, I was so ashamed!  Mr. Vertrees has always
    lived on his income, and papa didn't know him, of course.  They're the
    stiffist, most elegant people in the whole town.  And to crown it all, papa
    went and bought the next lot to the old Vertrees country mansion--it's in the
    very heart of the best new residence district now, and that's where the New
    House is, right next door to them--and I must say it makes their place look
    rather shabby!  I met Mary Vertrees when I joined the Mission Service Helpers,
    but she never did any more than just barely bow to me, and since papa's break
    I doubt if she'll do that!  They haven't called."

    "And you think if I spread this gossip about Vertrees the First stealing Dan'l
    Boone's gun, the chances that they WILL call--"

    "Papa knows what a break he made with Mrs. Vertrees.  I made him understand
    that," said Edith, demurely, "and he's promised to try and meet Mr. Vertrees
    and be nice to him.  It's just this way: if we don't know THEM, it's
    practically no use in our having build the New House; and if we DO know them
    and they're decent to us, we're right with the right people.  They can do the
    whole thing for us. Bobby Lamhorn told Sibyl he was going to bring his mother
    to call on her and on mamma, but it was weeks ago, and I notice he hasn't done
    it; and if Mrs.  Vertrees decides not to know us, I'm darn sure Mrs. Lamhorn
    'll never come.  That's ONE thing Sibyl didn't manage!  She SAID Bobby offered
    to bring his mother--"

    "You say he is a friend of Roscoe's?" Bibbs asked.

    "Oh, he's a friend of the whole family," she returned, with a petulance which
    she made an effort to disguise.  "Roscoe and he got acquainted somewhere, and
    they take him to the theater about every other night.  Sibyl has him to lunch,
    too, and keeps--"  She broke off with an angry little jerk of the head. "We
    can see the New House from the second corner ahead.  Roscoe has built straight
    across the street from us, you know.  Honestly, Sibyl makes me think of a
    snake, sometimes--the way she pulls the wool over people's eyes!  She honeys
    up to papa and gets anything in the world she wants out of him, and then makes
    fun of him behind his back--yes, and to his face, but HE can't see it!  She
    got him to give her a twelve-thousand-dollar porch for their house after it
    was--"

    "Good heavens!" said Bibbs, staring ahead as they reached the corner and the
    car swung to the right, following a bend in the street.  "Is that the New
    House?"

    "Yes.  What do you think of it?"

    "Well," he drawled, "I'm pretty sure the sanitarium's about half a size
    bigger; I can't be certain till I measure."

    And a moment later, as they entered the driveway, he added, seriously:  "But
    it's beautiful!"

    It was gray stone, with long roofs of thick green slate.  An architect who
    loved the milder "Gothic motives" had built what he liked:  it was to be seen
    at once that he had been left unhampered, and he had wrought a picture out of
    his head into a noble and exultant reality.  At the same time a
    landscape-designer had played so good a second, with ready-made accessories of
    screen, approach and vista, that already whatever look of newness remained
    upon the place was to its advantage, as showing at least one thing yet clean
    under the grimy sky.  For, though the smoke was thinner in this direction, and
    at this long distance from the heart of the town, it was not absent, and
    under tutelage of wind and weather could be malignant even here, where cows
    had wandered in the meadows and corn had been growing not ten years gone.

    Altogether, the New House was a success.  It was one of those architects'
    successes which leave the owners veiled in privacy; it revealed nothing of the
    people who lived in it save that they were rich.  There are houses that cannot
    be detached from their own people without protesting:  every inch of mortar
    seems to mourn the separation, and such a house--no matter what be done to
    it--is ever murmurous with regret, whispering the old name sadly to itself
    unceasingly.  But the New House was of a kind to change hands without emotion.
    In our swelling cities, great places of its type are useful as financial
    gauges of the business tides; rich families, one after another, take title and
    occupy such houses as fortunes rise and fall--they mark the high tide.  It was
    impossible to imagine a child's toy wagon left upon a walk or driveway of the
    New House, and yet it was--as Bibbs rightly called it-- "beautiful."

    What the architect thought of the "Golfo di Napoli," which hung in its vast
    gold revel of rococo frame against the gray wood of the hall, is to be
    conjectured--perhaps he had not seen it.

    "Edith, did you say only eleven feet?" Bibbs panted, staring at it, as the
    white-jacketed twin of a Pullman porter helped him to get out of his overcoat.

    "Eleven without the frame," she explained.  "It's splendid, don't you think?
    It lightens things up so.  The hall was kind of gloomy before."

    "No gloom now!" said Bibbs.

    "This statue in the corner is pretty, too," she remarked.  "Mamma and I bought
    that."  And Bibbs turned at her direction to behold, amid a grove of tubbed
    palms, a "life-size," black-bearded Moor, of a plastic compositon painted with
    unappeasable gloss and brilliancy.  Upon his chocolate head he wore a gold
    turban; in his hand he held a gold-tipped spear; and for the rest, he was red
    and yellow and black and silver.

    "Hallelujah!" was the sole comment of the returned wanderer, and Edith, saying
    she would "find mamma," left him blinking at the Moor.  Presently, after she
    had disappeared, he turned to the colored man who stood waiting, Bibbs's
    traveling-bag in his hand.  "What do YOU think of it?" Bibbs asked, solemnly.

    "Gran'!" replied the servitor.  "She mightly hard to dus'.  Dus' git in all
    'em wrinkles.  Yessuh, she mighty hard to dus'."

    "I expect she must be," said Bibbs, his glance returning reflectively to the
    black bull beard for a moment.  "Is there a place anywhere I could lie down?"

    "Yessuh.  We got one nem spare rooms all fix up fo' you, suh.  Right up
    staihs, suh.  Nice room."

    He led the way, and Bibbs followed slowly, stopping at intervals to rest, and
    noting a heavy increase in the staff of service since the exodus from the
    "old" house.  Maids and scrubwomen were at work under the patently nominal
    direction of another Pullman porter, who was profoundly enjoying his own
    affectation of being harassed with care.

    "Ev'ything got look spick an' span fo' the big doin's to-night," Bibbs's
    guide explained, chuckling.  "Yessuh, we got big doin's to-night!  Big
    doin's!"

    The room to which he conducted his lagging charge was furnished in every
    particular like a room in a new hotel; and Bibbs found it pleasant-- though,
    indeed, any room with a good bed would have seemed pleasant to him after his
    journey.  He stretched himself flat immediately, and having replied "Not now"
    to the attendant's offer to unpack the bag, closed his eyes wearily.

    White-jacket, racially sympathetic, lowered the window-shades and made an exit
    on tiptoe, encountering the other white-jacket--the harassed overseer --in the
    hall without.  Said the emerging one:  "He mighty shaky, Mist' Jackson. Drop
    right down an' shet his eyes.  Eyelids all black.  Rich folks gotta go same as
    anybody else.  Anybody ast me if I change 'ith 'at ole boy --No, suh!  Le'm
    keep 'is money; I keep my black skin an' keep out the ground!"

    Mr. Jackson expressed the same preference.  "Yessuh, he look tuh me like
    somebody awready laid out," he concluded.  And upon the stairway landing, near
    by, two old women, on all-fours at their work, were likewise pessimistic.

    "Hech!" said one, lamenting in a whisper.  "It give me a turn to see him go
    by--white as wax an' bony as a dead fish!  Mrs. Cronin, tell me:  d'it make ye
    kind o' sick to look at um?"

    "Sick?  No more than the face of a blessed angel already in heaven!"

    "Well," said the other, "I'd a b'y o' me own come home t' die once--"  She
    fell silent at a rustling of skirts in the corridor above them.

    It was Mrs. Sheridan hurrying to greet her son.

    She was one of those fat, pink people who fade and contract with age like
    drying fruit; and her outside was a true portrait of her.  Her husband and her
    daughter had long ago absorbed her.  What intelligence she had was given
    almost wholly to comprehending and serving those two, and except in the
    presence of one of them she was nearly always absent-minded.  Edith lived all
    day with her mother, as daughters do; and Sheridan so held his wife to her
    unity with him that she had long ago become unconscious of her existence as a
    thing separate from his.  She invariably perceived his moods, and nursed him
    through them when she did not share them; and she gave him a profound sympathy
    with the inmost spirit and purpose of his being, even though she did not
    comprehend it and partook of it only as a spectator.  They had known but one
    actual altercation in their lives, and that was thirty years past, in the
    early days of Sheridan's struggle, when, in order to enhance the favorable
    impression he believed himself to be making upon some capitalists, he had
    thought it necessary to accompany them to a performance of "The Black Crook."
    But she had not once referred to this during the last ten years.

    Mrs. Sheridan's manner was hurried and inconsequent; her clothes rustled more
    than other women's clothes; she seemed to wear too many at a time and to be
    vaguely troubled by them, and she was patting a skirt down over some unruly
    internal dissension at the moment she opened Bibbs's door.

    At sight of the recumbent figure she began to close the door softly,
    withdrawing, but the young man had heard the turning of the knob and the
    rustling of skirts, and he opened his eyes.

    "Don't go, mother," he said.  "I'm not asleep."  He swung his long legs over
    the side of the bed to rise, but she set a hand on his shoulder, restraining
    him; and he lay flat again.

    "No," she said, bending over to kiss his cheek, "I just come for a minute, but
    I want to see how you seem.  Edith said--"

    "Poor Edith!" he murmured.  "She couldn't look at me.  She--"

    "Nonsense!"  Mrs. Sheridan, having let in the light at a window, came back to
    the bedside.  "You look a great deal better than what you did before you went
    to the sanitarium, anyway.  It's done you good; a body can see that right
    away.  You need fatting up, of course, and you haven't got much color--"

    "No," he said, "I haven't much color."

    "But you will have when you get your strength back."

    "Oh yes!" he responded, cheerfully.  "THEN I will."

    "You look a great deal better than what I expected."

    "Edith must have a great vocabulary!" he chuckled.

    "She's too sensitive," said Mrs. Sheridan, "and it makes her exaggerate a
    little.  What about your diet?"

    "That's all right.  They told me to eat anything."

    "Anything at all?"

    "Well--anything I could."

    "That's good," she said, nodding.  "They mean for you just to build up your
    strength.  That's what they told me the last time I went to see you at the
    sanitarium.  You look better than what you did then, and that's only a little
    time ago.  How long was it?"

    "Eight months, I think."

    "No, it couldn't be.  I know it ain't THAT long, but maybe it was longer 'n I
    thought.  And this last month or so I haven't had scarcely even time to write
    more than just a line to ask how you were gettin' along, but I told Edith to
    write, the weeks I couldn't, and I asked Jim to, too, and they both said they
    would, so I suppose you've kept up pretty well on the home news."

    "Oh yes."

    "What I think you need," said the mother, gravely, "is to liven up a little
    and take an interest in things.  That's what papa was sayin' this morning,
    after we got your telegram; and that's what 'll stimilate your appetite, too.
    He was talkin' over his plans for you--"

    "Plans?"  Bibbs, turning on his side, shielded his eyes from the light with
    his hand, so that he might see her better.  "What--"  He paused.  "What plans
    is he making for me, mother?"

    She turned away, going back to the window to draw down the shade.  "Well, you
    better talk it over with HIM," she said, with perceptible nervousness.  "He
    better tell you himself.  I don't feel as if I had any call, exactly, to go
    into it; and you better get to sleep now, anyway."  She came and stood by the
    bedside once more.  "But you must remember, Bibbs, whatever papa does is for
    the best.  He loves his chuldern and wants to do what's right by ALL of 'em
    --and you'll always find he's right in the end."

    He made a little gesture of assent, which seemed to content her; and she
    rustled to the door, turning to speak again after she had opened it.  "You get
    a good nap, now, so as to be all rested up for to-night."

    "You--you mean--he--" Bibbs stammered, having begun to speak too quickly.
    Checking himself, he drew a long breath, then asked, quietly, "Does father
    expect me to come down-stairs this evening?"

    "Well, I think he does," she answered.  "You see, it's the 'house-warming,' as
    he calls it, and he said he thinks all our chuldern ought to be around us, as
    well as the old friends and other folks.  It's just what he thinks you
    need--to take an interest and liven up.  You don't feel too bad to come down,
    do you?"

    "Mother?"

    "Well?"

    "Take a good look at me," he said.

    "Oh, see here!" she cried, with brusque cheerfulness.  "You're not so bad off
    as you think you are, Bibbs.  You're on the mend; and it won't do you any harm
    to please your--"

    "It isn't that," he interrupted.  "Honestly, I'm only afraid it might spoil
    somebody's appetite.  Edith--"

    "I told you the child was too sensitive," she interrupted, in turn.  "You're a
    plenty good-lookin' enough young man for anybody!  You look like you been
    through a long spell and begun to get well, and that's all there is to it."

    "All right.  I'll come to the party.  If the rest of you can stand it, I can!"

    "It 'll do you good," she returned, rustling into the hall.  "Now take a nap,
    and I'll send one o' the help to wake you in time for you to get dressed up
    before dinner.  You go to sleep right away, now, Bibbs!"

    Bibbs was unable to obey, though he kept his eyes closed.  Something she had
    said kept running in his mind, repeating itself over and over interminably.
    "His plans for you--his plans for you--his plans for you--his plans for you--"
    And then, taking the place of "his plans for you," after what seemed a long,
    long while, her flurried voice came back to him insistently, seeming to
    whisper in his ear:  "He loves his chuldern--he loves his chuldern--he loves
    his chuldern"--"you'll find he's always right--you'll find he's always
    right--"  Until at last, as he drifted into the state of half-dreams and
    distorted realities, the voice seemed to murmur from beyond a great black wing
    that came out of the wall and stretched over his bed--it was a black wing
    within the room, and at the same time it was a black cloud crossing the sky,
    bridging the whole earth from pole to pole.  It was a cloud of black smoke,
    and out of the heart of it came a flurried voice whispering over and over,
    "His plans for you--his plans for you--his plans for you--"  And then there
    was nothing.

    He woke refreshed, stretched himself gingerly--as one might have a care
    against too quick or too long a pull upon a frayed elastic--and, getting to
    his feet, went blinking to the window and touched the shade so that it flew
    up, letting in a pale sunset.

    He looked out into the lemon-colored light and smiled wanly at the next house,
    as Edith's grandiose phrase came to mind, "the old Vertrees country mansion."
    It stood in a broad lawn which was separated from the Sheridans' by a young
    hedge; and it was a big, square, plain old box of a house with a giant
    salt-cellar atop for a cupola.  Paint had been spared for a long time, and no
    one could have put a name to the color of it, but in spite of that the place
    had no look of being out at heel, and the sward was as neatly trimmed as the
    Sheridans' own.

    The separating hedge ran almost beneath Bibbs's window--for this wing of the
    New House extended here almost to the edge of the lot--and, directly opposite
    the window, the Vertreeses' lawn had been graded so as to make a little knoll
    upon which stood a small rustic "summer-house."  It was almost on a level with
    Bibbs's window and not thirty feet away; and it was easy for him to imagine
    the present dynasty of Vertreeses in grievous outcry when they had found this
    retreat ruined by the juxtaposition of the parvenu intruder. Probably the
    "summer-house" was pleasant and pretty in summer.  It had the lookof a place
    wherein little girls had played for a generation or so with dolls and
    "housekeeping," or where a lovely old lady might come to read something dull
    on warm afternoons; but now in the thin light it was desolate, the color of
    dust, and hung with haggard vines which had lost their leaves.

    Bibbs looked at it with grave sympathy, probably feeling some kinship with
    anything so dismantled; then he turned to a cheval-glass beside the window and
    paid himself the dubious tribute of a thorough inspection.  He looked the
    mirror up and down, slowly, repeatedly, but came in the end to a long and
    earnest scrutiny of the face.  Throughout this cryptic seance his manner was
    profoundly impersonal; he had the air of an entomologist intent upon
    classifying a specimen, but finally he appeared to become pessimistic.  He
    shook his head solemnly; then gazed again and shook his head again, and
    continued to shake it slowly, in complete disapproval.

    "You certainly are one horrible sight!" he said, aloud.

    And at that he was instantly aware of an observer.  Turning quickly, he was
    vouchsafed the picture of a charming lady, framed in a rustic aperture of the
    "summer-house" and staring full into his window--straight into his eyes, too,
    for the infinitesimal fraction of a second before the flashingly censorious
    withdrawal of her own.  Composedly, she pulled several dead twigs from a vine,
    the manner of her action conveying a message or proclamation to the effect
    that she was in the summer-house for the sole purpose of such-like pruning and
    tending, and that no gentleman could suppose her presence there to be due to
    any other purpose whatsoever, or that, being there on that account, she had
    allowed her attention to wander for one instant in the direction of things of
    which she was in reality unconscious.

    Having pulled enough twigs to emphasize her unconsciousness--and at the same
    time her disapproval--of everything in the nature of a Sheridan or belonging
    to a Sheridan, she descended the knoll with maintained composure, and
    sauntered toward a side-door of the country mansion of the Vertreeses. An
    elderly lady, bonneted and cloaked, opened the door and came to meet her.

    "Are you ready, Mary?  I've been looking for you.  What were you doing?"

    "Nothing.  Just looking into one of Sheridans' windows," said Mary Vertrees.
    "I got caught at it."

    "Mary!" cried her mother.  "Just as we were going to call!  Good heavens!"

    "We'll go, just the same," the daughter returned.  "I suppose those women
    would be glad to have us if we'd burned their house to the ground."

    "But WHO saw you?" insisted Mrs. Vertrees.

    "One of the sons, I suppose he was.  I believe he's insane, or something.  At
    least I hear they keep him in a sanitarium somewhere, and never talk about
    him.  He was staring at himself in a mirror and talking to himself.  Then he
    looked out and caught me."

    "What did he--"

    "Nothing, of course."

    "How did he look?"

    "Like a ghost in a blue suit," said Miss Vertrees, moving toward the street
    and waving a white-gloved hand in farewell to her father, who was observing
    them from the window of his library.  "Rather tragic and altogether
    impossible.  Do come on, mother, and let's get it over!"

    And Mrs. Vertrees, with many misgivings, set forth with her daughter for their
    gracious assault upon the New House next door.

    Mr. Vertrees, having watched their departure with the air of a man who had
    something at hazard upon the expedition, turned from the window and began to
    pace the library thoughtfully, pending their return.  He was about sixty; a
    small man, withered and dry and fine, a trim little sketch of an elderly
    dandy.  His lambrequin mustache--relic of a forgotten Anglomania--had been
    profoundly black, but now, like his smooth hair, it was approaching an equally
    sheer whiteness; and though his clothes were old, they had shapeliness and a
    flavor of mode.  And for greater spruceness there were some jaunty touches;
    gray spats, a narrow black ribbon across the gray waistcoat to the eye-glasses
    in a pocket, a fleck of color from a button in the lapel of the black coat,
    labeling him the descendant of patriot warriors.

    The room was not like him, being cheerful and hideous, whereas Mr. Vertrees
    was anxious and decorative.  Under a mantel of imitation black marble a merry
    little coal-fire beamed forth upon high and narrow "Eastlake" bookcases with
    long glass doors, and upon comfortable, incongruous furniture, and upon
    meaningless "woodwork" everywhere, and upon half a dozen Landseer engravings
    which Mr. and Mrs. Vertrees sometimes mentioned to each other, after thirty
    years of possession, as "very fine things."  They had been the first people in
    town to possess Landseer engravings, and there, in art, they had rested, but
    they still had a feeling that in all such matters they were in the van; and
    when Mr. Vertrees discovered Landseers upon the walls of other people's houses
    he thawed, as a chieftain to a trusted follower; and if he found an edition of
    Bulwer Lytton accompanying the Landseers as a final corroboration of culture,
    he would say, inevitably, "Those people know good pictures and they know good
    books."

    The growth of the city, which might easily have made him a millionaire,  had
    ruined him because he had failed to understand it.  When towns begin to grow
    they have whims, and the whims of a town always ruin somebody.  Mr. Vertrees
    had been most strikingly the somebody in this case.  At about the time he
    bought the Landseers, he owned, through inheritance, an office-building and a
    large house not far from it, where he spent the winter; and he had a country
    place--a farm of four hundred acres--where he went for the summers to the
    comfortable, ugly old house that was his home now, perforce, all the year
    round.  If he had known how to sit still and let things happen he would have
    prospered miraculously; but, strangely enough, the dainty little man was one
    of the first to fall down and worship Bigness, the which proceeded straightway
    to enact the role of Juggernaut for his better education.  He was a true
    prophet of the prodigious growth, but he had a fatal gift for selling good and
    buying bad.  He should have stayed at home and looked at his Landseers and
    read his Bulwer, but he took his cow to market, and the trained milkers milked
    her dry and then ate her.  He sold the office-building and the house in town
    to buy a great tract of lots in a new suburb; then he sold the farm, except
    the house and the ground about it, to pay the taxes on the suburban lots and
    to "keep them up."  The lots refused to stay up; but he had to do something to
    keep himself and his family up, so in despair he sold the lots (which went up
    beautifully the next year) for "traction stock" that was paying dividends; and
    thereafter he ceased to buy and sell.  Thus he disappeared altogether from the
    commercial surface at about the time James Sheridan came out securely on top;
    and Sheridan, until Mrs. Vertrees called upon him with her "anti-smoke"
    committee, had never heard the name.

    Mr. Vertrees, pinched, retired to his Landseers, and Mrs. Vertrees "managed
    somehow" on the dividends, though "managing" became more and more difficult as
    the years went by and money bought less and less.  But there came a day when
    three servitors of Bigness in Philadelphia took greedy counsel with four
    fellow-worshipers from New York, and not long after that there were no more
    dividends for Mr. Vertrees.  In fact, there was nothing for Mr. Vertrees,
    because the "traction stock" henceforth was no stock at all, and he had
    mortgaged his house long ago to help "manage somehow" according to his
    conception of his "position in life"--one of his own old-fashioned phrases.
    Six months before the completion of the New House next door, Mr. Vertrees had
    sold his horses and the worn Victoria and "station-wagon," to pay the arrears
    of his two servants and re-establish credit at the grocer's and butcher's--
    and a pair of elderly carriage-horses with such accoutrements are not very
    ample barter, in these days, for six months' food and fuel and service.  Mr.
    Vertrees had discovered, too, that there was no salary for him in all the
    buzzing city--he could do nothing.

    It may be said that he was at the end of his string.  Such times do come in
    all their bitterness, finally, to the man with no trade or craft, if his
    feeble clutch on that slippery ghost, Property, shall fail.

    The windows grew black while he paced the room, and smoky twilight closed
    round about the house, yet not more darkly than what closed round about the
    heart of the anxious little man patrolling the fan-shaped zone of firelight.
    But as the mantel clock struck wheezily six there was the rattle of an outer
    door, and a rich and beautiful peal of laughter went ringing through the
    house.  Thus cheerfully did Mary Vertrees herald her return with her mother
    from their expedition among the barbarians.

    She came rushing into the library and threw herself into a deep chair by the
    hearth, laughing so uncontrollably that tears were in her eyes.  Mrs. Vertrees
    followed decorously, no mirth about her; on the contrary, she looked vaguely
    disturbed, as if she had eaten something not quite certain to agree with her,
    and regretted it.

    "Papa!  Oh, oh!"  And Miss Vertrees was fain to apply a handkerchief upon her
    eyes.  "I'm SO glad you made us go!  I wouldn't have missed it--"

    Mrs. Vertrees shook her head.  "I suppose I'm very dull," she said, gently. "I
    didn't see anything amusing.  They're most ordinary, and the house is
    altogether in bad taste, but we anticipated that, and--"

    "Papa!" Mary cried, breaking in.  "They asked us to DINNER!"

    "What!"

    "And I'm GOING!" she shouted, and was seized with fresh paroxysms.  "Think of
    it!  Never in their house before; never met any of them but the daughter-- and
    just BARELY met her--"

    "What about you?" interrrupted Mr. Vertrees, turning sharply upon his wife.

    She made a little face as if positive now that what she had eaten would not
    agree with her.  "I couldn't!" she said.  "I--"

    "Yes, that's just--just the way she--she looked when they asked her!" cried
    Mary, choking.  "And then she--she realized it, and tried to turn it into a
    cough, and she didn't know how, and it sounded like--like a squeal!"

    "I suppose," said Mrs. Vertrees, much injured, "that Mary will have an
    uproarious time at my funeral.  She makes fun of--"

    Mary jumped up instantly and kissed her; then she went to the mantel and,
    leaning an elbow upon it, gazed thoughtfully at the buckle of her shoe,
    twinkling in the firelight.

    "THEY didn't notice anything," she said.  "So far as they were concerned,
    mamma, it was one of the finest coughs you ever coughed."

    "Who were 'they'?" asked her father.  "Whom did you see?"

    "Only the mother and daughter," Mary answered.  "Mrs. Sheridan is dumpy and
    rustly; and Miss Sheridan is pretty and pushing--dresses by the fashion
    magazines and talks about New York people that have their pictures in 'em. She
    tutors the mother, but not very successfully--partly because her own
    foundation is too flimsy and partly because she began too late.  They've got
    an enormous Moor of painted plaster or something in the hall, and the girl
    evidently thought it was to her credit that she selected it!"

    "They have oil-paintings, too," added Mrs. Vertrees, with a glance of gentle
    price at the Landseers.  "I've always thought oil-paintings in a private house
    the worst of taste."

    "Oh, if one owned a Raphael or a Titian!" said Mr. Vertrees, finishing the
    implication, not in words, but with a wave of his hand.  "Go on, Mary.  None
    of the rest of them came in?  You didn't meet Mr. Sheridan or--"  He paused
    and adjusted a lump of coal in the fire delicately with the poker.  "Or one of
    the sons?"

    Mary's glance crossed his, at that, with a flash of utter comprehension.  He
    turned instantly away, but she had begun to laugh again.

    "No," she said, "no one except the women, but mamma inquired about the sons
    thoroughly!"

    "Mary!" Mrs. Vertrees protested.

    "Oh, most adroitly, too!" laughed the girl.  "Only she couldn't help
    unconsciously turning to look at me--when she did it!"

    "Mary Vertrees!"

    "Never mind, mamma!  Mrs. Sheridan and Miss Sheridan neither of THEM could
    help unconsiously turning to look at me--speculatively--at the same time! They
    all three kept looking at me and talking about the oldest son, Mr. James
    Sheridan, Junior.  Mrs. Sheridan said his father is very anxious 'to get Jim
    to marry and settle down,' and she assured me that 'Jim is right cultivated.'
    Another of the sons, the youngest one, caught me looking in the window this
    afternoon; but they didn't seem to consider him quite one of themselves,
    somehow, though Mrs. Sheridan mentioned that a couple of years or so ago he
    had been 'right sick,' and had been to some cure or other.  They seemed
    relieved to bring the subject back to 'Jim' and his virtues--and to look at
    me!  The other brother is the middle one, Roscoe; he's the one that owns the
    new house across the street, where that young black-sheep of the Lamhorns,
    Robert, goes so often.  I saw a short, dark young man standing on the porch
    with Robert Lamhorn there the other day, so I suppose that was Roscoe.  'Jim'
    still lurks in the mists, but I shall meet him to-night.  Papa--"  She stepped
    nearer to him so that he had to face her, and his eyes were troubled as he
    did.  There may have been a trouble deep within her own, but she kept their
    surface merry with laughter.  "Papa, Bibbs is the youngest one's name, and
    Bibbs--to the best of our information--is a lunatic.  Roscoe is married.
    Papa, does it have to be Jim?"

    "Mary!" Mrs. Vertrees cried, sharply.  "You're outrageous!  That's a perfectly
    horrible way of talking!"

    "Well, I'm close to twenty-four," said Mary, turning to her.  "I haven't been
    able to like anybody yet that's asked me to marry him, and maybe I never
    shall.  Until a year or so ago I've had everything I ever wanted in my life
    --you and papa gave it all to me--and it's about time I began to pay back.
    Unfortunately, I don't kow how to do anything--but something's got to be
    done."

    "But you needn't talk of it like THAT!" insisted the mother, plaintively.
    "It's not--it's not--"

    "No, it's not," said Mary.  "I know that!"

    "How did they happen to ask you to dinner?" Mr. Vertrees inquired, uneasily.
    "'Stextrawdn'ry thing!"

    "Climbers' hospitality," Mary defined it.  "We were so very cordial and easy!
    I think Mrs. Sheridan herself might have done it just as any kind old woman on
    a farm might ask a neighbor, but it was Miss Sheridan who did it.  She played
    around it awhile; you could see she wanted to--she's in a dreadful hurry to
    get into things--and I fancied she had an idea it might impress that Lamhorn
    boy to find us there to-night.  It's a sort of house-warming dinner, and they
    talked about it and talked about it--and then the girl got her courage up and
    blurted out the invitation.  And mamma--"  Here Mary was once more a victim to
    incorrigible merriment.  "Mamma tried to say yes, and COULDN'T!  She swallowed
    and squealed--I mean you coughed, dear!  And then, papa, she said that you and
    she had promised to go to a lecture at the Emerson Club to-night, but that her
    daughter would be delighted to come to the Big Show!  So there I am, and
    there's Mr. Jim Sheridan--and there's the clock. Dinner's at seven-thirty!"

    And she ran out of the room, scooping up her fallen furs with a gesture of
    flying grace as she sped.

    When she came down, at twenty munutes after seven, her father stood in the
    hall, at the foot of the stairs, waiting to be her escort through the dark. He
    looked up and watched her as she descended, and his gaze was fond and
    proud--and profoundly disturbed.  But she smiled and nodded gaily, and, when
    she reached the floor, put a hand on his shoulder.

    "At least no one could suspect me to-night," she said.  "I LOOK rich, don't I,
    papa?"

    She did.  She had a look that worshipful girl friends bravely called "regal."
    A head taller than her father, she was as straight and jauntily poised as a
    boy athlete; and her brown hair and her brown eyes were like her mother's, but
    for the rest she went back to some stronger and livelier ancestor than either
    of her parents.

    "Don't I look too rich to be suspected?" she insisted.

    "You look everything beautiful, Mary," he said, huskily.

    "And my dress?"  She threw open her dark velvet cloak, showing a splendor of
    white and silver.  "Anything better at Nice next winter, do you think?" She
    laughed, shrouding her glittering figure in the cloak again.  "Two years old,
    and no one would dream it!  I did it over."

    "You can do anything, Mary."

    There was a curious humility in his tone, and something more--a significance
    not veiled and yet abysmally apologetic.  It was as if he suggested something
    to her and begged her forgiveness in the same breath.

    And upon that, for the moment, she became as serious as he.  She lifted her
    hand from his shoulder and then set it back more firmly, so that he should
    feel the reassurance of its pressure.

    "Don't worry," she said, in a low voice and gravely.  "I know exactly what you
    want me to do."

    It was a brave and lustrous banquet; and a noisy one, too, because there was
    an orchestra among some plants at one end of the long dining-room, and after a
    preliminary stiffness the guests were impelled to converse--necessarily at the
    tops of their voices.  The whole company of fifty sat at a great oblong table,
    improvised for the occasion by carpenters; but, not betraying itself as an
    improvisation, it seemed a permanent continent of damask and lace, with shores
    of crystal and silver running up to spreading groves of orchids and lilies and
    white roses--an inhabited continent, evidently, for there were three
    marvelous, gleaming buildings:  one in the center and one at each end, white
    miracles wrought by some inspired craftsman in sculptural icing.  They were
    models in miniature, and they represented the Sheridan Building, the Sheridan
    Apartments, and the Pump Works.  Nearly all the guests recognized them without
    having to be told what they were, and pronounced the likenesses superb.

    The arrangement of the table was visably baronial.  At the head sat the great
    Thane, with the flower of his family and of the guests about him; then on each
    side came the neighbors of the "old" house, grading down to vassals and
    retainers--superintendents, cashiers, heads of departments, and the like-- at
    the foot, where the Thane's lady took her place as a consolation for the less
    important.  Here, too, among the thralls and bondmen, sat Bibbs Sheridan, a
    meek Banquo, wondering how anybody could look at him and eat.

    Nevertheless, there was a vast, continuous eating, for these were wholesome
    folk who understood that dinner meant something intended for introduction into
    the system by means of an aperture in the face, devised by nature for that
    express purpose.  And besides, nobody looked at Bibbs.

    He was better content to be left to himself; his voice was not strong enough
    to make itself heard over the hubbub without an exhausting effort, and the
    talk that went on about him was too fast and too fragmentary for his drawl to
    keep pace with it.  So he felt relieved when each of his neighbors in turn,
    after a polite inquiry about his health, turned to seek livelier reponses in
    other directions.  For the talk went on with the eating, incessantly.  It rose
    over the throbbing of the orchestra and the clatter and clinking of silver and
    china and glass, and there was a mighty babble.

    "Yes, sir!  Started without a dollar." . . . "Yellow flounces on the
    overskirt--" . . . "I says, 'Wilkie, your department's got to go bigger this
    year,' I says." . . . "Fifteen per cent. turnover in thirty-one weeks." . . .
    "One of the bigest men in the bigest--" ...  "The wife says she'll have to let
    out my pants if my appetite--" . . . "Say, did you see that statue of a Turk
    in the hall?  One of the finest things I ever--"  . . . "Not a dollar, not a
    nickel, not one red cent do you get out o' me,' I says, and so he ups and--" .
    . . "Yes, the baby makes four,  they've lost now.". . . "Well, they got their
    raise, and they went in big." . . . "Yes, sir!  Not a dollar to his name, and
    look at what--" . . . "You wait! The population of this town's goin' to hit
    the million mark before she stops." . . . "Well, if you can show me a bigger
    deal than--"

    And through the interstices of this clamoring Bibbs could hear the continual
    booming of his father's heavy voice, and once he caught the sentence, "Yes,
    young lady, that's just what did it for me, and that's just what'll do it for
    my boys--they got to make two blades o' grass grow where one grew before!"  It
    was his familiar flourish, an old story to Bibbs, and now jovially declaimed
    for the edification of Mary Vertrees.

    It was a great night for Sheridan--the very crest of his wave.  He sat there
    knowing himself Thane and master by his own endeavor; and his big, smooth, red
    face grew more and more radiant with good will and with the simplest,
    happiest, most boy-like vanity.  He was the picture of health, of good cheer,
    and of power on a holiday.  He had thirty teeth, none bought, and showed most
    of them when he laughed; his grizzled hair was thick, and as unruly as a farm
    laborer's; his chest was deep and big beneath its vast facade of starched
    white linen, where little diamonds twinkled, circling three large pearls; his
    hands were stubby and strong, and he used them freely in gestures of marked
    picturesqueness; and, though he had grown fat at chin and waist and wrist, he
    had not lost the look of readiness and activity.

    He dominated the table, shouting jocular questions and railleries at every
    one. His idea was that when people were having a good time they were noisy;
    and his own additions to the hubbub increased his pleasure, and, of course,
    met the warmest encouragement from his guests.  Edith had discovered that he
    had very foggy notions of the difference between a band and an orchestra, and
    when it was made clear to him he had held out for a band until Edith
    threatened tears; but the size of the orchestra they hired consoled him, and
    he had now no regrets in the matter.

    He kept time to the music continually--with his feet, or pounding on the table
    with his fist, and sometimes with spoon or knife upon his plate or a glass,
    without permitting these side-products to interfere with the real business of
    eating and shouting.

    "Tell 'em to play 'Nancy Lee'!" he would bellow down the length of the table
    to his wife, while the musicians were in the midst of the "Toreador" song,
    perhaps.  "Ask that fellow if they don't know 'Nancy Lee'!"  And when the
    leader would shake his head apologetically in answer to an obedient shriek
    from Mrs. Sheridan, the "Toreador" continuing vehemently, Sheridan would roar
    half-remembered fragments of "Nancy Lee," naturally mingling some Bizet with
    the air of that uxorious tribute.

    "Oh, there she stands and waves her hands while I'm away! "A sail-er's wife a
    sail-er's star should be!  Yo ho, oh, oh! "Oh, Nancy, Nancy, Nancy Lee!  Oh,
    Na-hancy Lee!"

    "HAY, there, old lady!" he would bellow.  "Tell 'em to play 'In the Gloaming.'
    In the gloaming, oh, my darling, la-la-lum-tee--Well, if they don't know that,
    what's the matter with 'Larboard Watch, Ahoy'?  THAT'S good music! That's the
    kind o' music I like!  Come on, now!  Mrs. Callin, get 'em singin' down in
    your part o' the table.  What's the matter you folks down there, anyway?
    Larboard watch, ahoy!"

    "What joy he feels, as--ta-tum-dum-tee-dee-dum steals.  La-a-r-board watch,
    ahoy!"

    No external bubbling contributed to this effervescence; the Sheridans' table
    had never borne wine, and, more because of timidity about it than conviction,
    it bore none now; though "mineral waters" were copiously poured from bottles
    wrapped, for some reason, in napkins, and proved wholly satisfactory to almost
    all of the guests.  And certainly no wine could have inspired more turbulent
    good spirits in the host.  Not even Bibbs was an alloy in this night's
    happiness, for, as Mrs. Sheridan had said, he had "plans for Bibbs"--plans
    which were going to straighten out some things that had gone wrong.

    So he pounded the table and boomed his echoes of old songs, and then,
    forgetting these, would renew his friendly railleries, or perhaps, turning to
    Mary Vertrees, who sat near him, round the corner of the table at his right,
    he would become autobiographical.  Gentlemen less naive than he had paid her
    that tribute, for she was a girl who inspired the autobiographical impulse in
    every man who met her--it needed but the sight of her.

    The dinner seemed, somehow, to center about Mary Vertrees and the jocund host
    as a play centers about its hero and heroine; they were the rubicund king and
    the starry princess of this spectacle--they paid court to each other, and
    everybody paid court to them.  Down near the sugar Pump Works, where Bibbs
    sat, there was audible speculation and admiration.  "Wonder who that lady
    is--makin' such a hit with the old man."  "Must be some heiress."  "Heiress?
    Golly, I guess I could stand it to marry rich, then!"

    Edith and Sibyl were radiant: at first they had watched Miss Vertrees with an
    almost haggard anxiety, wondering what disasterous effect Sheridan's pastoral
    gaieties--and other things--would have upon her, but she seemed delighted with
    everything, and with him most of all.  She treated him as if he were some
    delicious, foolish old joke that she understood perfectly, laughing at him
    almost violently when he bragged--probably his first experience of that kind
    in his life.  It enchanted him.

    As he proclaimed to the table, she had "a way with her."  She had, indeed, as
    Roscoe Sheridan, upon her right, discovered just after the feast began. Since
    his marriage three years before, no lady had bestowed upon him so protracted a
    full view of brilliant eyes; and, with the look, his lovely neighbor said--and
    it was her first speech to him--

    "I hope you're very susceptible, Mr. Sheridan!"

    Honest Roscoe was taken aback, and "Why?" was all he managed to say.

    She repeated the look deliberately, which was noted, with a mystification
    equal to his own, by his sister across the table.  No one, reflected Edith,
    could image Mary Vertrees the sort of girl who would "really flirt" with
    married men--she was obviously the "opposite of all that."  Edith defined her
    as a "thoroughbred," a "nice girl"; and the look given to Roscoe was
    astounding.  Roscoe's wife saw it, too, and she was another whom it puzzled
    --though not because its recipient was married.

    "Because!" said Mary Vertrees, replying to Roscoe's monosyllable.  "And also
    because we're next-door neighbors at table, and it's dull times ahead for both
    of us if we don't get along."

    Roscoe was a literal young man, all stocks and bonds, and he had been brought
    up to believe that when a man married he "married and settled down."  It was
    "all right," he felt, for a man as old as his father to pay florid compliments
    to as pretty a girl as this Miss Vertrees, but for himself--"a young married
    man"--it wouldn't do; and it wouldn't even be quite moral. He knew that young
    married people might have friendships, like his wife's for Lamhorn; but Sibyl
    and Lamhorn never "flirted"--they were always very matter-of-fact with each
    other.  Roscoe would have been troubled if Sibyl had ever told Lamhorn she
    hoped he was susceptible.

    "Yes--we're neighbors," he said, awkwardly.

    "Next-door neighbors in houses, too," she added.

    "No, not exactly.  I live across the street."

    "Why, no!" she exclaimed, and seemed startled.  "Your mother told me this
    afternoon that you lived at home."

    "Yes, of course I live at home.  I built that new house across the street."

    "But you--"  she paused, confused, and then slowly a deep color came into her
    cheek.  "But I understood--"

    "No," he said; "my wife and I lived with the old folks the first year, but
    that's all.  Edith and Jim live with them, of course."

    "I--I see," she said, the deep color still deepening as she turned from him
    and saw, written upon a card before the gentleman at her left the name, "Mr.
    James Sheridan, Jr."  And from that moment Roscoe had little enough cause for
    wondering what he ought to reply to her disturbing coquetries.

    Mr. James Sheridan had been anxiously waiting for the dazzling visitor to "get
    through with old Roscoe," as he thought of it, and give a bachelor a chance.
    "Old Roscoe" was the younger, but he had always been the steady wheel-horse of
    the family.  Jim was "steady" enough, but was considered livelier than Roscoe,
    which in truth is not saying much for Jim's liveliness. As their father
    habitually boasted, both brothers were "capable, hard-working young business
    men," and the principal difference between them was merely that which resulted
    from Jim's being still a bachelor.  Physically they were of the same type:
    dark of eyes and of hair, fresh-colored and thick-set, and though Roscoe was
    several inches taller than Jim, neither was of the height, breadth, or depth
    of the father.  Both wore young business men's mustaches, and either could
    have sat for the tailor-shop lithographs of young business men wearing "rich
    suitings in dark mixtures."

    Jim, approving warmly of his neighbor's profile, perceived her access of
    color, which increased his approbation.  "What's that old Roscoe saying to
    you, Miss Vertrees?" he asked.  "These young married men are mighty  forward
    nowadays, but you mustn't let 'em make you blush."

    "Am I blushing?" she said.  "Are you sure?"  And with that she gave him ample
    opportunity to make sure, repeating with interest the look wasted upon Roscoe.
    "I think you must be mistaken," she continued.  "I think it's your brother who
    is blushing.  I've thrown him into confusion."

    "How?"

    She laughed, and then, leaning to him a little, said in a tone as confidential
    as she could make it, under cover of the uproar.  "By trying to begin with him
    a courtship I meant for YOU!"

    This might well be a style new to Jim; and it was.  He supposed it a
    nonsensical form of badinage, and yet it took his breath.  He realized that he
    wished what she said to be the literal truth, and he was instantly snared by
    that realization.

    "By George!" he said.  "I guess you're the kind of girl that can say anything
    --yes, and get away with it, too!"

    She laughed again--in her way, so that he could not tell whether she was
    laughing at him or at herself or at the nonsense she was talking; and she
    said: "But you see I don't care whether I get away with it or not.  I wish
    you'd tell me frankly if you think I've got a change to get away with YOU?"

    "More like if you've got a chance to get away FROM me!" Jim was inspired to
    reply.  "Not one in the world, especially after beginning by making fun of me
    like that."

    "I mightn't be so much in fun as you think," she said, regarding him with
    sudden gravity.

    "Well," said Jim, in simple honesty, "you're a funny girl!"

    Her gravity continued an instant longer.  "I may not turn out to be funny for
    YOU."

    "So long as you turn out to be anything at all for me, I expect I can manage
    to be satisfied."  And with that, to his own surprise, it was his turn to
    blush, whereupon she laughed again.

    "Yes," he said, plaintively, not wholly lacking intuition, "I can see you're
    the sort of girl that would laugh the minute you see a man really means
    anything!"

    "'Laugh'!" she cried, gaily.  "Why, it might be a matter of life and death!
    But if you want tragedy, I'd better put the question at once, considering the
    mistake I made with your brother."

    Jim was dazed.  She seemed to be playing a little game of mockery and nonsense
    with him, but he had glimpses of a flashing danger in it; he was but too
    sensible of being outclassed, and had somewhere a consciousness that he could
    never quite know this giddy and alluring lady, no matter how long it pleased
    her to play with him.  But he mightily wanted her to keep on playing with him.

    "Put what question?" he said, breathlessly.

    "As you are a new neighbor of mine and of my family," she returned, speaking
    slowly and with a cross-examiner's severity, "I think it would be well for me
    to know at once whether you are already walking out with any young lady or
    not.  Mr. Sheridan, think well!  Are you spoken for?"

    "Not yet," he gasped.  "Are you?"

    "NO!" she cried, and with that they both laughed again; and the pastime
    proceeded, increasing both in its gaiety and in its gravity.

    Observing its continuance, Mr. Robert Lamhorn, opposite, turned from a lively
    conversation with Edith and remarked covertly to Sibyl that Miss Vertrees was
    "starting rather picturesquely with Jim."  And he added, languidly, "Do you
    suppose she WOULD?"

    For the moment Sibyl gave no sign of having heard him, but seemed interested
    in the clasp of a long "rope" of pearls, a loop of which she was allowing to
    swing from her fingers, resting her elbow upon the table and following with
    her eyes the twinkle of diamonds and platinum in the clasp at the end of the
    loop.  She wore many jewels.  She was pretty, but hers was not the kind of
    prettiness to be loaded with too sumptuous accessories, and jeweled
    head-dresses are dangerous--they may emphasize the wrongness of the wearer.

    "I said Miss Vertrees seems to be starting pretty strong with Jim," repeated
    Mr. Lamhorn.

    "I heard you."  There was a latent discontent always somewhere in her eyes, no
    matter what she threw upon the surface of cover it, and just now she did not
    care to cover it; she looked sullen.  "Starting any stronger than you did with
    Edith?" she inquired.

    "Oh, keep the peace!" he said, crossly.  "That's off, of course."

    "You haven't been making her see it this evening--precisely," said Sibyl,
    looking at him steadily.  "You've talked to her for--"

    "For Heaven's sake," he begged, "keep the peace!"

    "Well, what have you just been doing?!"

    "SH!" he said.  "Listen to your father-in-law."

    Sheridan was booming and braying louder than ever, the orchestra having begun
    to play "The Rosary," to his vast content.

    "I COUNT THEM OVER, LA-LA-TUM-TEE-DUM," he roared, beating the measures with
    his fork.  "EACH HOUR A PEARL, EACH PEARL TEE-DUM-TUM-DUM--What's the matter
    with all you folks?  Why'n't you SING?  Miss Vertrees, I bet a thousand
    dollars YOU sing!  Why'n't--"

    "Mr. Sheridan," she said, turning cheerfully from the ardent Jim, "you don't
    know what you interrupted!  Your son isn't used to my rough ways, and my
    soldier's wooing frightens him, but I think he was about to say something
    important."

    "I'll say something important to him if he doesn't!" the father threatened,
    more delighted with her than ever.  "By gosh! if I was his age--or a widower
    right NOW--"

    "Oh, wait!" cried Mary.  "If they'd only make less noice!  I want Mrs.
    Sheridan to hear."

    "She'd say the same," he shouted.  "She'd tell me I was mighty slow if I
    couldn't get ahead o' Jim.  Why, when I was his age--"

    "You must listen to your father," Mary interrupted, turning to Jim, who had
    grown read again.  "He's going to tell us how, when he was your age, he made
    those two blades of grass grow out of a teacup--and you could see for yourself
    he didn't get them out of his sleeve!"

    At that Sheridan pounded the table till it jumped.  "Look here, young lady!"
    he roared.  "Some o' these days I'm either goin' to slap you--or I'm goin' to
    kiss you!"

    Edith looked aghast; she was afraid this was indeed "too awful," but Mary
    Vertrees burst into ringing laughter.

    "Both!" she cried. "Both!  The one to make me forget the other!"

    "But which--" he began, and then suddenly gave forth such stentorian
    trumpetings of mirth that for once the whole table stopped to listen.  "Jim,"
    he roared, "if you don't propose to that girl to-night I'll send you back to
    the machine-shop with Bibbs!"

    And Bibbs--down among the retainers by the sugar Pump Works, and watching Mary
    Vertrees as a ragged boy in the street might watch a rich little girl in a
    garden--Bibbs heard.  He heard--and he knew what his father's plans were now.

    Mrs. Vertrees "sat up" for her daughter, Mr. Vertrees having retired after a
    restless evening, not much soothed by the society of his Landseers.  Mary had
    taken a key, insisting that he should not come for her and seeming confident
    that she would not lack for escort; nor did the sequel prove her confidence
    unwarranted.  But Mrs. Vertrees had a long vigil of it.

    She was not the woman to make herself easy--no servant had ever seen her in  a
    wrapper--and with her hair and dress and her shoes just what they had been
    when she returned from the afternoon's call, she sat through the slow night
    hours in a stiff little chair under the gaslight in her own room, which was
    directly over the "front hall."  There, book in hand, she employed the time in
    her own reminiscences, though it was her belief that she was reading Madame de
    Remusat's.

    Her thoughts went backward into her life and into her husband's; and the
    deeper into the past they went, the brighter the pictures they brought her--
    and there is tragedy.  Like her husband, she thought backward because she did
    not dare think forward definitely.  What thinking forward this troubled couple
    ventured took the form of a slender hope which neither of them could have
    borne to hear put in words, and yet they had talked it over, day after day,
    from the very hour when they heard Sheridan was to build his New House next
    door.  For--so quickly does any ideal of human behavior become an antique
    --their youth was of the innocent old days, so dead! of "breeding" and
    "gentility," and no craft had been more straitly trained upon them than that
    of talking about things without mentioning them.  Herein was marked the most
    vital difference between Mr. and Mrs. Vertrees and their big new neighbor.
    Sheridan, though his youth was of the same epoch, knew nothing of such
    matters.  He had been chopping wood for the morning fire in the country
    grocery while they were still dancing.

    It was after one o'clock when Mrs. Vertrees heard steps and the delicate
    clinking of the key in the lock, and then, with the opening of the door,
    Mary's laugh, and "Yes--if you aren't afraid--to-morrow!"

    The door closed, and she rushed up-stairs, bringing with her a breath of cold
    and bracing air into her mother's room.  "Yes," she said, before Mrs. Vertrees
    could speak, "he brought me home!"

    She let her cloak fall upon the bed, and, drawing an old red-velvet
    rocking-chair forward, sat beside her mother after giving her a light pat
    upon the shoulder and a hearty kiss upon the cheek.

    "Mamma!" Mary exclaimed, when Mrs. Vertrees had expressed a hope that she had
    enjoyed the evening and had not caught cold.  "Why don't you ask me?"

    This inquiry obviously made her mother uncomfortable.  "I don't--" she
    faltered.  "Ask you what, Mary?"

    "How I got along and what he's like."

    "Mary!"

    "Oh, it isn't distressing!" said Mary.  "And I got along so fast--"  She broke
    off to laugh; continuing then, "But that's the way I went at it, of course.
    We ARE in a hurry, aren't we?"

    "I don't know what you mean," Mrs. Vertrees insisted, shaking her head
    plaintively.

    "Yes," said Mary, "I'm going out in his car with him to-morrow afternoon, and
    to the theater the next night--but I stopped it there.  You see, after you
    give the first push, you must leave it to them while YOU pretend to run away!"

    "My dear, I don't know what to--"

    "What to make of anything!" Mary finished for her.  "So that's all right! Now
    I'll tell you all about it.  It was gorgeous and deafening and tee-total.  We
    could have lived a year on it.  I'm not good at figures, but I calculated that
    if we lived six months on poor old Charlie and Ned and the station-wagon and
    the Victoria, we could manage at least twice as long on the cost of the
    'house-warming.'  I think the orchids alone would have lasted us a couple of
    months.  There they were, before me, but I couldn't steal 'em and sell 'em,
    and so--well, so I did what I could!"

    She leaned back and laughed reassuringly to her troubled mother.  "It seemed
    to be a success--what I could," she said, clasping her hands behind her neck
    and stirring the rocker to motion as a rhythmic accompaniment to her
    narrative.  "The girl Edith and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan, were
    too anxious about the effect of things on me.  The father's worth a bushel of
    both of them, if they knew it.  He's what he is.  I like him."  She paused
    reflectively, continuing, "Edith's 'interested' in that Lamhorn boy; he's
    good-looking and not stupid, but I think he's--"  She interrupted herself with
    a cheery outcry: "Oh! I mustn't be calling him names!  If he's trying to make
    Edith like him, I ought to respect him as a colleague."

    "I don't understand a thing you're talking about," Mrs. Vertrees complained.

    "All the better!  Well, he's a bad lot, that Lamhorn boy; everybody's always
    known that, but the Sheridans don't know the everybodies that know.  He sat
    between Edith and Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan.  SHE'S like those people you wondered
    about at the theater, the last time we went--dressed in ball-gowns; bound to
    show their clothes and jewels SOMEwhere!  She flatters the father, and so did
    I, for that matter--but not that way.  I treated him outrageously!"

    "Mary!"

    "That's what flattered him.  After dinner he made the whole regiment of us
    follow him all over the house, while he lectured like a guide on the Palatine.
    He gave dimensions and costs, and the whole b'ilin' of 'em listened as if they
    thought he intended to make them a present of the house.  What he was proudest
    of was the plumbing and that Bay of Naples panorama in the hall.  He made us
    look at all the plumbing--bath-rooms and everywhere else--and then he made us
    look at the Bay of Naples.  He said it was a hundred and eleven feet long, but
    I think it's more.  And he led us all into the  ready-made library to see a
    poem Edith had taken a prize with at school.   They'd had it printed in gold
    letters and framed in mother-of-pearl.  But the poem itself was rather simple
    and wistful and nice--he read it to us, though Edith tried to stop him.  She
    was modest about it, and said she'd never written anything else.  And then,
    after a while, Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan asked me to come across the street to her
    house with them--her husband and Edith and Mr. Lamhorn and Jim Sheridan--"

    Mrs. Vertrees was shocked.  "'Jim'!" she exclaimed.  "Mary, PLEASE--"

    "Of course," said Mary.  "I'll make it as easy for you as I can, mamma.  Mr.
    James Sheridan, Junior.  We went over there, and Mrs. Roscoe explained that
    'the men were all dying for a drink,' though I noticed that Mr. Lamhorn was
    the only one near death's door on that account.  Edith and Mrs. Roscoe said
    they knew I'd been bored at the dinner.  They were objectionably apologetic
    about it, and they seemed to think NOW we were going to have a 'good time' to
    make up for it.  But I hadn't been bored at the dinner, I'd been amused; and
    the 'good time' at Mrs. Roscoe's was horribly, horribly stupid."

    "But, Mary," her mother began, "is--is--"  And she seemed unable to complete
    the question.

    "Never mind, mamma. I'll say it.  Is Mr. James Sheridan, Junior, stupid?  I'm
    sure he's not at all stupid about business.  Otherwise--Oh, what right have I
    to be calling people 'stupid' because they're not exactly my kind?  On the big
    dinner-table they had enormous icing models of the Sheridan Building--"

    "Oh, no!"  Mrs. Vertrees cried.  "Surely not!"

    "Yes, and two other things of that kind--I don't know what.  But, after all, I
    wondered if they were so bad.  If I'd been at a dinner at a palace in Italy,
    and a relief or inscription on one of the old silver peices had referred to
    some great deed or achievement of the family, I shouldn't have felt superior;
    I'd have thought it picturesque and stately--I'd have been impressed.  And
    what's the real difference?  The icing is temporary, and that's much more
    modest, isn't it?  And why is it vulgar to feel important more on account of
    something you've done yourself than because of something one of your ancestors
    did?  Besides, if we go back a few generations, we've all got such hundreds of
    ancestors it seems idiotic to go picking out one or two to be proud of
    ourselves about.  Well, then, mamma, I managed not to feel superior to Mr.
    James Sheridan, Junior, because he didn't see anything out of place in the
    Sheridan Building in sugar."

    Mrs. Vertrees's expression had lost none of its anxiety pending the conclusion
    of this lively bit of analysis, and she shook her head gravely.  "My dear,
    dear child," she said, "it seems to me--It looks--I'm afraid--"

    "Say as much of it as you can, mamma," said Mary, encouragingly.  "I can get
    it, if you'll just give me one key-word."

    "Everything you say," Mrs. Vertrees began, timidly, "seems to have the air of
    --It is as if you were seeking to--to make yourself--"

    "Oh, I see!  You mean I sound as if I were trying to force myself to like
    him."

    "Not exactly, Mary.  That wasn't quite what I meant," said Mrs. Vertrees,
    speaking direct untruth with perfect unconsciousness.  "But you said that--
    that you found the latter part of the evening at young Mrs. Sheridan's
    unentertaining--"

    "And as Mr. James Sheridan was there, and I saw more of him than at dinner,
    and had a horribly stupid time in spite of that, you think I--"  And then it
    was Mary who left the deduction unfinished.

    Mrs. Vertrees nodded; and though both the mother and the daughter understood,
    Mary felt it better to make the understanding definite.

    "Well," she asked, gravely, "is there anything else I can do?  You and papa
    don't want me to do anything that distresses me, and so, as this is the only
    thing to be done, it seems it's up to me not to let it distress me.  That's
    all there is about it. isn't it?"

    "But nothing MUST distress you!" the mother cried.

    "That's what I say!" said Mary, cheerfully.  "And so it doesn't.  It's all
    right."  She rose and took her cloak over her arm, as if to go to her own
    room.  But on the way to the door she stopped, and stood leaning against the
    foot of the bed, contemplating a threadbare rug at her feet.  "Mother, you've
    told me a thousand times that it doesn't really matter whom a girl marries."

    "No, no!" Mrs. Vertrees protested.  "I never said such a--"

    "No, not in words; I mean what you MEANT.  It's true, isn't it, that marriage
    really is 'not a bed of roses, but a field of battle'?  To get right down to
    it, a girl could fight it out with anybody, couldn't she?  One man as well as
    another?"

    "Oh, my dear!  I'm sure your father and I--"

    "Yes, yes," said Mary, indulgently.  "I don't mean you and papa.  But isn't it
    propinquity that makes marriages?  So many people say so, there must be
    something in it."

    "Mary, I can't bear for you to talk like that."  And Mrs. Vertrees lifted
    pleading eyes to her daughter--eyes that begged to be spared.  "It sounds
    --almost reckless!"

    Mary caught the appeal, came to her, and kissed her gaily.  "Never fret, dear!
    I'm not likely to do anything I don't want to do--I've always been too
    thorough-going a little pig!  And if it IS propinquity that does our choosing
    for us, well, at least no girl in the world could ask for more than THAT! How
    could there be any more propinquity than the very house next door?"

    She gave her mother a final kiss and went gaily all the way to the door this
    time, pausing for her postscript with her hand on the knob.  "Oh, the one that
    caught me looking in the window, mamma, the youngest one--"

    "Did he speak of it?" Mrs. Vertrees asked, apprehensively.

    "No.  He didn't speak at all, that I saw, to any one.  I didn't meet him. But
    he isn't insane, I'm sure; or if he is, he has long intervals when he's not.
    Mr. James Sheridan mentioned that he lived at home when he was 'well enough';
    and it may be he's only an invalid.  He looks dreadfully ill, but he has
    pleasant eyes, and it struck me that if--if one were in the Sheridan
    family"--she laughed a little ruefully--"he might be interesting to talk to
    sometimes, when there was too much stocks and bonds.  I didn't see him after
    dinner."

    "There must be something wrong with him," said Mrs. Vertrees.  "They'd have
    introduced him if there wasn't."

    "I don't know.  He's been ill so much and away so much--sometimes people like
    that just don't seem to 'count' in a family.  His father spoke of sending him
    back to a machine-shop or some sort; I suppose he meant when the poor thing
    gets better.  I glanced at him just then, when Mr. Sheridan mentioned him, and
    he happened to be looking straight at me; and he was pathetic-looking enough
    before that, but the most tragic change came over him. He seemed just to die,
    right there at the table!"

    "You mean when his father spoke of sending him to the shop place?"

    "Yes."

    "Mr. Sheridan must be very unfeeling."

    "No," said Mary, thoughtfully, "I don't think he is; but he might be
    uncomprehending, and certainly he's the kind of man to do anything he once
    sets out to do.  But I wish I hadn't been looking at that poor boy just then!
    I'm afraid I'll keep remembering--"

    "I wouldn't."  Mrs. Vertrees smiled faintly, and in her smile there was the
    remotest ghost of a genteel roguishness.  "I'd keep my mind on pleasanter
    things, Mary."

    Mary laughed and nodded.  "Yes, indeed!  Plenty pleasant enough, and probably,
    if all were known, too good--even for me!"

    And when she had gone Mrs. Vertrees drew a long breath, as if a burden were
    off her mind, and, smiling, began to undress in a gentle reverie.

    Edith, glancing casually into the "ready-made" library, stopped abruptly,
    seeing Bibbs there alone.  He was standing before the pearl-framed and golden-
    lettered poem, musingly inspecting it.  He read it:

               Fugitive
            I will forget the things that sting:
              The lashing look, the barbed word.
            I know the very hands that fling
              The stones at me had never stirred
            To anger but for their own scars.
              They've suffered so, that's why they strike.
            I'll keep my heart among the stars
              Where none shall hunt it out.  Oh, like
            These wounded ones I must not be,
              For, wounded, I might strike in turn!
            So, none shall hurt me.  Far and free
              Where my heart flies no one shall learn.

    "Bibbs!" Edith's voice was angry, and her color deepened suddenly as she came
    into the room, preceded by a scent of violets much more powerful than that
    warranted by the actual bunch of them upon the lapel of her coat.

    Bibbs did not turn his head, but wagged it solemnly, seeming depressed by the
    poem.  "Pretty young, isn't it?" he said.  "There must have been something
    about your looks that got the prize, Edith; I can't believe the poem did it."

    She glanced hurriedly over her shoulder and spoke sharply, but in a low voice:
    "I don't think it's very nice of you to bring it up at all, Bibbs. I'd like a
    chance to forget the whole silly business.  I didn't want them to frame it,
    and I wish to goodness papa'd quit talking about it; but here, that night,
    after the dinner, didn't he go and read it aloud to the whole crowd of 'em!
    And then they all wanted to know what other poems I'd written and why I didn't
    keep it up and write some more, and if I didn't, why didn't I, and why this
    and why that, till I thought I'd die of shame!"

    "You could tell 'em you had writer's cramp," Bibbs suggested.

    "I couldn't tell 'em anything!  I just choke with mortification every time
    anybody speaks of the thing."

    Bibbs looked grieved.  "The poem isn't THAT bad, Edith.  You see, you were
    only seventeen when you wrote it."

    "Oh, hush up!" she snapped.  "I wish it had burnt my fingers the first time I
    touched it.  Then I might have had sense enough to leave it where it was.  I
    had no business to take it, and I've been ashamed--"

    "No, no," he said, comfortingly.  "It was the very most flattering thing ever
    happen to me.  It was almost my last flight before I went to the machine-shop,
    and it's pleasant to think somebody liked it enough to--"

    "But I DON'T like it!" she exclaimed.  "I don't even understand it--and papa
    made so much fuss over its getting the prize, I just hate it!  The truth is I
    never dreamed it 'd get the prize."

    "Maybe they expected father to endow the school," Bibbs murmered.

    "Well, I had to have something to turn in, and I couldn't write a LINE!  I
    hate poetry, anyhow; and Bobby Lamhorn's always teasing me about how I 'keep
    my heart among the stars.'  He makes it seem such a mushy kind of thing, the
    way he says it.  I hate it!"

    "You'll have to live it down, Edith.  Perhaps abroad and under another name
    you might find--"

    "Oh, hush up!  I'll hire some one to steal it and burn it the first chance I
    get."  She turned away petulantly, moving to the door.  "I'd like to think I
    could hope to hear the last of it before I die!"

    "Edith!" he called, as she went into the hall.

    "What's the matter?"

    "I want to ask you: Do I really look better, or have you just got used to me?"

    "What on earth do you mean?" she said, coming back as far as the threshold.

    "When I first came you couldn't look at me," Bibbs explained, in his
    impersonal way.  "But I've noticed you look at me lately.  I wondered if
    I'd--"

    "It's because you look so much better," she told him, cheerfully.  "This month
    you've been here's done you no end of good.  It's the change."

    "Yes, that's what they said at the sanitarium--the change."

    "You look worse than 'most anybody I ever saw," said Edith, with supreme
    candor.  "But I don't know much about it.  I've never seen a corpse in my
    life, and I've never even seen anybody that was terribly sick, so you mustn't
    judge by me.  I only know you do look better, I'm glad to say.  But you're
    right about my not being able to look at you at first.  You had a kind of
    whiteness that--Well, you're almost as thin, I suppose, but you've got more
    just ordinarily pale; not that ghastly look.  Anybody could look at you now,
    Bibbs, and no--not get--"

    "Sick?"

    "Well--almost that!" she laughed.  "And you're getting a better color every
    day, Bibbs; you really are.  You're getting along splendidly."

    "I--I'm afraid so," he said, ruefully.

    "'Afraid so'!  Well, if you aren't the queerest!  I suppose you mean father
    might send you back to the machine-shop if you get well enough.  I heard him
    say something about it the night of the--"  The jingle of a distant bell
    interrupted her, and she glanced at her watch.  "Bobby Lamhorn!  I'm going to
    motor him out to look at a place in the country.  Afternoon, Bibbs!"

    When she had gone, Bibbs mooned pessimistically from shelf to shelf, his eye
    wandering among the titles of the books.  The library consisted almost
    entirely of handsome "uniform editions": Irving, Poe, Cooper, Goldsmith,
    Scott, Byron, Burns, Longfellow, Tennyson, Hume, Gibbon, Prescott, Thackeray,
    Dickens, De Musset, Balzac, Gautier, Flaubert, Goethe, Schiller, Dante, and
    Tasso.  There were shelves and shelves of encyclopedias, of anthologies, of
    "famous classics," of "Oriental masterpieces," of "masterpieces of oratory,"
    and more shelves of "selected libraries" of "literature," of "the drama," and
    of "modern science."  They made an effective decoration for the room, all
    these big, expensive books, with a glossy binding here and there twinkling a
    reflection of the flames that crackled in the splendid Gothic fireplace; but
    Bibbs had an impression that the bookseller who selected them considered them
    a relief, and that white-jacket considered them a burden of dust, and that
    nobody else considered them at all.  Himself, he disturbed not one.

    There came a chime of bells from a clock in another part of the house, and
    white-jacket appeared beamingly in the doorway, bearing furs.  "Awready, Mist'
    Bibbs," he announced.  "You' ma say wrap up wawm f' you' ride, an' she cain'
    go with you to-day, an' not f'git go see you' pa at fo' 'clock.  Aw ready,
    suh."

    He equipped Bibbs for the daily drive Dr. Gurney had commanded; and in the
    manner of a master of ceremonies unctuously led the way.  In the hall they
    passed the Moor, and Bibbs paused before it while white-jacket opened the door
    with a flourish and waved condescendingly to the chauffeur in the car which
    stood waiting in the driveway.

    "It seems to me I asked you what you thought about this 'statue' when I first
    came home, George," said Bibbs, thoughtfully.  "What did you tell me?"

    "Yessuh!" George chuckled, perfectly understanding that for some unknown
    reason Bibbs enjoyed hearing him repeat his opinion of the Moor.  "You ast me
    when you firs' come home, an' you ast me nex' day, an' mighty near ev'y day
    all time you been here; an' las' Sunday you ast me twicet."  He shook his head
    solemnly.  "Look to me mus' be somep'm might lamiDAL 'bout 'at statue!"

    "Mighty what?"

    "Mighty lamiDAL!" George, burst out laughing.  "What DO 'at word mean, Mist'
    Bibbs?"

    "It's new to me, George.  Where did you hear it?"

    "I nev' DID hear it!" said George.  "I uz dess sittin' thinkum to myse'f an'
    she pop in my head--'lamiDAL,' dess like 'at!  An' she soun' so good, seem
    like she GOTTA mean somep'm!"

    "Come to think of it, I believe she does mean something.  Why, yes--"

    "Do she?" cried George.  "WHAT she mean?"

    "It's exactly the word for the statue," said Bibbs, with conviction, as he
    climbed into the car.  "It's a lamiDAL statue."

    "Hiyi!" George exulted.  "Man! Man! Listen!  Well, suh, she mighty lamiDAL
    statue, but lamiDAL statue heap o' trouble to dus'!" "I expect she is!" said
    Bibbs, as the engine began to churn; and a moment later he was swept from
    sight.

    George turned to Mist' Jackson, who had been listening benevolently in the
    hallway.  "Same he aw-ways say, Mist' Jackson--'I expec' she is!'  Ev'y day he
    try t' git me talk 'bout 'at lamiDAL statue, an' aw-ways, las' thing HE say,
    'I expec' she is!'  You know, Mist' Jackson, if he git well, 'at young man go'
    be pride o' the family, Mist' Jackson.  Yes-suh, right now I pick 'im fo'
    firs' money!"

    "Look out with all 'at money, George!" Jackson warned the enthusiast.  "White
    folks 'n 'is house know 'im heap longer 'n you.  You the on'y man bettin' on
    'im!"

    "I risk it!" cried George, merrily.  "I put her all on now--ev'y cent!  'At
    boy's go' be flower o' the flock!"

    This singular prophecy, founded somewhat recklessly upon gratitude for the
    meaning of "lamiDAL," differed radically from another prediction concerning
    Bibbs, set forth for the benefit of a fair auditor some twenty minutes later.

    Jim Sheridan, skirting the edges of the town with Mary Vertrees beside him, in
    his own swift machine, encountered the invalid upon the highroad.  The two
    cars were going in opposite directions, and the occupants of Jim's had only a
    swaying glimpse of Bibbs sitting alone on the back seat--his white face
    startlingly white against cap and collar of black fur--but he flashed into
    recognition as Mary bowed to him.

    Jim waved his left hand carelessly.  "It's Bibbs, taking his constitutional,"
    he explained.

    "Yes, I know," said Mary.  "I bowed to him, too, though I've never met him. In
    fact, I've only seen him once--no, twice.  I hope he won't think I'm very
    bold, bowing to him."

    "I doubt if he noticed it," said honest Jim.

    "Oh, no!" she cried.

    "What's the trouble?"

    "I'm almost sure people notice it when I bow to them."

    "Oh, I see!" said Jim.  "Of course they would ordinarily, but Bibbs is funny."

    "Is he?  How?" she asked.  "He strikes me as anything but funny."

    "Well, I'm his brother," Jim said, deprecatingly, "but I don't know what he's
    like, and, to tell the truth, I've never felt exactly like I WAS his brother,
    the way I do Roscoe.  Bibbs never did seem more than half alive to me.  Of
    course Roscoe and I are older, and when we were boys we were too big to play
    with him, but he never played anyway, with boys his own age.  He'd rather just
    sit in the house and mope around by himslef.  Nobody could ever get him to DO
    anything; you can't get him to do anything now.  He never had any LIFE in him;
    and honestly, if he is my brother, I must say I believe Bibbs Sheridan is the
    laziest man God ever made!  Father put him in the machine-shop over at the
    Pump Works--best thing in the world for him--and he was just plain no account.
    It made him sick!  If he'd had the right kind of energy--the kind father's
    got, for instance, or Roscoe, either--why, it wouldn't made him sick.  And
    suppose it was either of them--yes, or me, either--do you think any of us
    would have stopped if we WERE sick?  Not much!  I hate to say it, but Bibbs
    Sheridan 'll never amount to anything as long as he lives."

    Mary looked thoughtful.  "Is there any particular reason why he should?" she
    asked.

    "Good gracious!" he exclaimed.  "You don't mean that, do you?  Don't you
    believe in a man's knowing how to earn his salt, no matter how much money his
    father's got?  Hasn't the business of this world got to be carried on by
    everybody in it?  Are we going to lay back on what we've got and see other
    fellows get ahead of us?  If we've got big things already, isn't it every
    man's business to go ahead and make 'em bigger?  Isn't it his duty?  Don't we
    always want to get bigger and bigger?"

    "Ye-es--I don't know.  But I feel rather sorry for your brother.  He looked so
    lonely--and sick."

    "He's gettin' better every day," Jim said.  "Dr. Gurney says so.  There's
    nothing much the matter with him, really--it's nine-tenths imaginary.
    'Nerves'!  People that are willing to be busy don't have nervous diseases,
    because they don't have time to imagine 'em."

    "You mean his trouble is really mental?"

    "Oh, he's not a lunatic," said Jim.  "He's just queer. Sometimes he'll say
    something right bright, but half the time what he says is 'way off the
    subject, or else there isn't any sense to it at all.  For instance, the other
    day I heard him talkin' to one of the darkies in the hall.  The darky asked
    him what time he wanted the car for his drive, and anybody else in the world
    would have just said what time they DID want it, and that would have been all
    there was to it; but here's what Bibbs says, and I heard him with my own ears.
    'What time do I want the car?' he says. 'Well, now, that depends--that
    depends,' he says.  He talks slow like that, you know.  'I'll tell you what
    time I want the car, George,' he says, 'if you'll tell ME what you think of
    this statue!'  That's exactly his words! Asked the darky what he thought of
    that Arab Edith and mother bought for the hall!"

    Mary pondered upon this.  "He might have been in fun, perhaps," she suggested.

    "Askin' a darky what he thought of a piece of statuary--of a work of art!
    Where on earth would be the fun of that?  No, you're just kind-hearted--and
    that's the way you OUGHT to be, of course--"

    "Thank you, Mr. Sheridan!" she laughed.

    "See here!" he cried.  "Isn't there any way for us to get over this Mister and
    Miss thing?  A month's got thirty-one days in it; I've managed to be with you
    a part of pretty near all the thirty-one, and I think you know how I feel by
    this time--"

    She looked panic-stricken immediately.  "Oh, no," she protested, quickly. "No,
    I don't, and--"

    "Yes, you do," he said, and his voice shook a little.  "You couldn't help
    knowing."

    "But I do!" she denied, hurriedly.  "I do help knowing.  I mean--Oh, wait!"

    "What for?  You do know how I feel, and you--well, you've certainly WANTED me
    to feel that way--or else pretended--"

    "Now, now!" she lamented.  "You're spoiling such a cheerful afternoon!"

    "'Spoilin' it!'"  He slowed down the car and turned his face to her squarely.
    "See here, Miss Vertrees, haven't you--"

    "Stop!  Stop the car a minute."  And when he had complied she faced him as
    squarely as he evidently desired her to face him.  "Listen.  I don't want you
    to go on, to-day."

    "Why not?" he asked, sharply.

    "I don't know."

    "You mean it's just a whim?"

    "I don't know," she repeated.  Her voice was low and troubled and honest, and
    she kept her clear eyes upon his.

    "Will you tell me something?"

    "Almost anything."

    "Have you ever told any man you loved him?"

    And at that, though she laughed, she looked a little contemptuous.  "No," she
    said.  "And I don't think I ever shall tell any man that--or ever know what it
    means.  I'm in earnest, Mr. Sheridan."

    "Then you--you've just been flirting with me!"  Poor Jim looked both furious
    and crestfallen.

    "Not on bit!" she cried.  "Not one word!  Not one syllable!  I've meant every
    single thing!"

    "I don't--"

    "Of course you don't!" she said.  "Now, Mr. Sheridan, I want you to start the
    car.  Now!  Thank you.  Slowly, till I finish what I have to say.  I have not
    flirted with you.  I have deliberately courted you.  One thing more, and then
    I want you to take me straight home, talking about the weather all the way. I
    said that I do not believe I shall ever 'care' for any man, and that is true.
    I doubt the existence of the kind of 'caring' we hear about in poems and plays
    and novels.  I think it must be just a kind of emotional TALK-- most of it.
    At all events, I don't feel it.  Now, we can go faster, please."

    "Just where does that let me out?" he demanded.  "How does that excuse  you
    for--"

    "It isn't an excuse," she said, gently, and gave him one final look,  wholly
    desolate.  "I haven't said I should never marry."

    "What?" Jim gasped.

    She inclined her head in a broken sort of acquiescence, very humble,
    unfathomably sorrowful.

    "I promise nothing," she said, faintly.

    "You needn't!" shouted Jim, radiant and exultant.  "You needn't!  By  George!
    I know you're square; that's enough for me!  You wait and  promise whenever
    you're ready!"

    "Don't forget what I asked," she begged him.

    "Talk about the weather?  I will!  God bless the old weather!" cried the
    happy Jim.

    Through the open country Bibbs was borne flying between brown fields and
    sun-flecked groves of gray trees, to breathe the rushing, clean air  beneath a
    glorious sky--that sky so despised in the city, and so  maltreated there, that
    from early October to mid-May it was impossible  for men to remember that blue
    is the rightful color overhead.

    Upon each of Bibbs's cheeks there was a hint of something almost  resembling a
    pinkishness; not actual color, but undeniably its phantom.   How largely this
    apparition may have been the work of the wind upon his  face it is difficult
    to calculate, for beyond a doubt it was partly the  result of a lady's bowing
    to him upon no more formal introduction than  the circumstance of his having
    caught her looking into his window a month  before.  She had bowed definitely;
    she had bowed charmingly.  And it  seemed to Bibbs that she must have meant to
    convey her forgiveness.

    There had been something in her recognition of him unfamiliar to his
    experience, and he rode the warmer for it.  Nor did he lack the  impression
    that he would long remember her as he had just seen her: her  veil
    tumultuously blowing back, her face glowing in the wind--and that  look of gay
    friendliness tossed to him like a fresh rose in carnival.

    By and by, upon a rising ground, the driver halted the car, then backed  and
    tacked, and sent it forward again with its nose to the south and the  smoke.
    Far before him Bibbs saw the great smudge upon the horizon, that  nest of
    cloud in which the city strove and panted like an engine shrouded  in its own
    steam.  But to Bibbs, who had now to go to the very heart of  it, for a
    commanded interview with his father, the distant cloud was like  an implacable
    genius issuing thunderously in smoke from his enchanted  bottle, and
    irresistibly drawing Bibbs nearer and nearer.

    They passed from the farm lands, and came, in the amber light of November
    late afternoon, to the farthermost outskirts of the city; and here the  sky
    shimmered upon the verge of change from blue to gray; the smoke did  not
    visibly permeate the air, but it was there, nevertheless-- impalpable, thin,
    no more than the dust of smoke.  And then, as the car  drove on, the chimneys
    and stacks of factories came swimming up into view  like miles of steamers
    advancing abreast, every funnel with its vast  plume, savage and black,
    sweeping to the horizon, dripping wealth and  dirt and suffocation over league
    on league already rich and vile with grime.

    The sky had become only a dingy thickening of the soiled air; and a roar  and
    clangor of metals beat deafeningly on Bibbs's ears.  And now the car  passed
    two great blocks of long brick buildings, hideous in all ways  possible to
    make them hideous; doorways showing dark one moment and lurid  the next with
    the leap of some virulent interior flame, revealing  blackened giants, half
    naked, in passionate action, struggling with  formless things in the hot
    illumination.  And big as these shops were,  they were growing bigger,
    spreading over a third block, where two new  structures were mushrooming to
    completion in some hasty cement process of  a stability not over-reassuring.
    Bibbs pulled the rug closer about him,  and not even the phantom of color was
    left upon his cheeks as he passed  this place, for he knew it too well.
    Across the face of one of the  buildings there was an enormous sign: "Sheridan
    Automatic Pump Co., Inc."

    Thence they went through streets of wooden houses, all grimed, and adding
    their own grime from many a sooty chimney; flimsey wooden houses of a
    thousand flimsy whimsies in the fashioning, built on narrow lots and  nudging
    one another crossly, shutting out the stingy sunlight from one  another; bad
    neighbors who would destroy one another root and branch some  night when the
    right wind blew.  They were only waiting for that wind and  a cigarette, and
    then they would all be gone together--a pinch of  incense burned upon the
    tripod of the god.

    Along these streets there were skinny shade-trees, and here and there a
    forest elm or walnut had been left; but these were dying.  Some people  said
    it was the scale; some said it was the smoke; and some were sure  that asphalt
    and "improving" the streets did it; but Bigness was in too  Big a hurry to
    bother much about trees.  He had telegraph-poles and  telephone-poles and
    electric-light-poles and trolley-polls by the  thousand to take their places.
    So he let the trees die and put up his  poles.  They were hideous, but nobody
    minded that; and sometimes the  wires fell and killed people--but not often
    enough to matter at all.

    Thence onward the car bore Bibbs through the older parts of the town  where
    the few solid old houses not already demolished were in transition:  some,
    with their fronts torn away, were being made into segments of
    apartment-buildings; others had gone uproariously into trade, brazenly
    putting forth "show-windows" on their first floors, seeming to mean it  for a
    joke; one or two with unaltered facades peeped humorously over the  tops of
    temporary office buildings of one story erected in the old front  yards.
    Altogether, the town here was like a boarding-house hash the  Sunday after
    Thanksgiving; the old ingredients were discernible.

    This was the fringe of Bigness's own sanctuary, and now Bibbs reached the
    roaring holy of holies itself.  The car must stop at every crossing while  the
    dark-garbed crowds, enveloped in maelstroms of dust, hurried before  it.
    Magnificent new buildings, already dingy, loomed hundreds of feet  above him;
    newer ones, more magnificent, were rising beside them, rising  higher; old
    buildings were coming down; middle-aged buildings were coming  down; the
    streets were laid open to their entrails and men worked  underground between
    palisades, and overhead in metal cobwebs like spiders  in the sky.
    Trolley-cars and long interurban cars, built to split the  wind like
    torpedo-boats, clanged and shrieked their way round swarming  corners;
    motor-cars of every kind and shape known to man babbled  frightful warnings
    and frantic demands; hospital ambulances clamored  wildly for passage;
    steam-whistles signaled the swinging of titanic  tentacle and claw; riveters
    rattled like machine-guns; the ground shook  to the thunder of gigantic
    trucks; and the conglomerate sound of it all was  the sound of earthquake
    playing accompaniments for battle and sudden  death.  On one of the new steel
    buildings no work was being done that  afternoon.  The building had killed a
    man in the morning--and the  steel-workers always stop for the day when that
    "happens."

    And in the hurrying crowds, swirling and sifting through the  brobdingnagian
    camp of iron and steel, one saw the camp-followers and the  pagan women--there
    would be work to-day and dancing to-night.  For the  Puritan's dry voice is
    but the crackling of a leaf underfoot in the rush  and roar of the coming of
    the new Egypt.

    Bibbs was on time.  He knew it must be "to the minute" or his father  would
    consider it an outrage; and the big chronometer in Sheridan's  office marked
    four precisely when Bibbs walked in.  Coincidentally with  his entrance five
    people who had been at work in the office, under  Sheridan's direction, walked
    out.  They departed upon no visible or  audible suggestion, and with a
    promptness that seemed ominous to the  new-comer.  As the massive door clicked
    softly behind the elderly  stenographer, the last of the procession, Bibbs had
    a feeling that they  all understood that he was a failure as a great man's
    son, a  disappointment, the "queer one" of the family, and that he had been
    summoned to judgment--a well-founded impression, for that was exactly  what
    they understood.

    "Sit down," said Sheridan.

    It is frequently an advantage for deans, school-masters, and worried  fathers
    to place delinquents in the sitting-posture.  Bibbs sat.

    Sheridan, standing, gazed enigmatically upon his son for a period of  silence,
    then walked slowly to a window and stood looking out of it, his  big hands,
    loosely hooked together by the thumbs, behind his back.  They  were soiled, as
    were all other hands down-town, except such as might be  still damp from a basin.

    "Well, Bibbs," he said at last, not altering his attitude, "do you know  what
    I'm goin' to do with you?"

    Bibbs, leaning back in his chair, fixed his eyes contemplatively upon the
    ceiling.  "I heard you tell Jim," he began, in his slow way.  "You said  you'd
    send him to the machine-shop with me if he didn't propose to Miss  Vertrees.
    So I suppose that must be your plan for me.  But--"

    "But what?" said Sheridan, irritably, as the son paused.

    "Isn't there somebody you'd let ME propose to?"

    That brought his father sharply round to face him.  "You beat the devil!
    Bibbs, what IS the matter with you?  Why can't you be like anybody else?"

    "Liver, maybe," said Bibbs, gently.

    "Boh!  Even ole Doc Gurney says there's nothin' wrong with you  organically.
    No.  You're a dreamer, Bibbs; that's what's the matter, and  that's ALL the
    matter.  Oh, no one o' these BIG dreamers that put through  the big deals.!
    No, sir!  You're the kind o' dreamer that just sets out  on the back fence and
    thinks about how much trouble there must be in the  world!  That ain't the
    kind that builds the bridges, Bibbs; it's the kind  that borrows fifteen cents
    from his wife's uncle's brother-in-law to get  ten cent's worth o' plug
    tobacco and a nickel's worth o' quinine!"

    He put the finishing touch on this etching with a snort, and turned again  to
    the window.

    "Look out there!" he bade his son.  "Look out o' that window!  Look at  the
    life and evergy down there!  I should think ANY young man's blood  would
    tingle to get into it and be part of it.  Look at the big things  young men
    are doin' in this town!"  He swung about, coming to the  mahogany desk in the
    middle of the room.  "Look at what I was doin' at  your age!  Look at what
    your own brothers are doin'!  Look at Roscoe!   Yes, and look at Jim!  I made
    Jim president o' the Sheridan Realty  Company last New-Year's, with charge of
    every inch o' ground and every  brick and every shingle and stick o' wood we
    own; and it's an example to  any young man--or ole man, either--the way he
    took ahold of it.  Last  July we found out we wanted two more big warehouses
    at the Pump Works-- wanted 'em quick.  Contractors said it couldn't be done;
    said nine or  ten months at the soonest; couldn't see it any other way.  What
    'd Jim do?   Took the contract himself; found a fellow with a new cement and
    concrete  process; kept men on the job night and day, and stayed on it night
    and  day himself--and, by George! we begin to USE them warehouses next  week!
    Four months and a half, and every inch fireproof!  I tell you  Jim's one o'
    these fellers that make miracles happen!  Now, I don't say  every young man
    can be like Jim, because there's mighty few got his  ability, but every young
    man can go in and do his share.  This town is  God's own country, and there's
    opportunity for anybody with a pound of  energy and an ounce o' gumption.  I
    tell you these young business men I  watch just do my heart good!  THEY don't
    set around on the back fence-- no, sir!  They take enough exercise to keep
    their health; and they go to  a baseball game once or twice a week in summmer,
    maybe, and they're  raisin' nice families, with sons to take their places
    sometime and carry  on the work--because the work's got to go ON!  They're
    puttin' their  life-blood into it, I tell you, and that's why we're gettin'
    bigger every  minute, and why THEY'RE gettin' bigger, and why it's all goin'
    to keep ON  gettin' bigger!"

    He slapped the desk resoundingly with his open palm, and then, observing  that
    Bibbs remained in the same impassive attitude, with his eyes still  fixed upon
    the ceiling in a contemplation somewhat plaintive, Sheridan was  impelled to
    groan.  "Oh, Lord!" he said.  "This is the way you always were. I don't
    believe you understood a darn word I been sayin'!  You don't LOOK  as if you
    did.  By George! it's discouraging!"

    "I don't understand about getting--about getting bigger," said Bibbs,
    bringing his gaze down to look at his father placatively.  "I don't see  just
    why--"

    "WHAT?"  Sheridan leaned forward, resting his hands upon the desk and  staring
    across it incredulously at his son.

    "I don't understand--exactly--what you want it all bigger for?"

    "Great God!" shouted Sheridan, and struck the desk a blow with his  clenched
    fist.  "A son of mine asks me that!  You go out and ask the  poorest
    day-laborer you can find!  Ask him that question--"

    "I did once," Bibbs interrupted; "when I was in the machine-shop.  I--"

    "Wha'd he say?"

    "He said, 'Oh, hell!'" answered Bibbs, mildly.

    "Yes, I reckon he would!" Sheridan swung away from the desk.  "I reckon  he
    certainly would!  And I got plenty sympathy with him right now, myself!"

    "It's the same answer, then?"  Bibbs's voice was serious, almost tremulous.

    "Damnation!" Sheridan roared.  "Did you ever hear the word Prosperity,  you
    ninny?  Did you ever hear the word Ambition?  Did you ever hear the  word
    PROGRESS?"

    He flung himself into a chair after the outburst, his big chest surging,  his
    throat tumultuous with gutteral incoherences.  "Now then," he said,  huskily,
    when the anguish had somewhat abated, "what do you want to do?"

    "Sir?"

    "What do you WANT to do, I said."

    Taken by surprise, Bibbs stammered.  "What--what do--I--what--"

    "If I'd let you do exactly what you had the whim for, what would you do?"

    Bibbs looked startled; then timidity overwhelmed him--a profound  shyness.  He
    bent his head and fixed his lowered eyes upon the toe of his  shoe, which he
    moved to and fro upon the rug, like a culprit called to  the desk in school.

    "What would you do?  Loaf?"

    "No, sir."  Bibbs's voice was almost inaudible, and what little sound it  made
    was unquestionably a guilty sound.  "I suppose I'd--I'd--"

    "Well?"

    "I suppose I'd try to--to write."

    "Write what?"

    "Nothing important--just poems and essays, perhaps."

    "That all?"

    "Yes, sir."

    "I see," said his father, breathing quickly with the restraint he was  putting
    upon himself.  "That is, you want to write, but you don't want to  write
    anything of any account."

    "You think--"

    Sheridan got up again.  "I take my hat off to the man that can write a  good
    ad," he said, emphatically.  "The best writin' talent in this  country is
    right spang in the ad business to-day.  You buy a magazine for  good
    writin'--look on the back of it!  Let me tell you I pay money for  that kind
    o' writin'.  Maybe you think it's easy.  Just try it!  I've  tried it, and I
    can't do it.  I tell you an ad's got to be written so it  makes people do the
    hardest thing in this world to GET 'em to do: it's  got to make 'em give up
    their MONEY!  You talk about 'poems and essays.'   I tell you when it comes to
    the actual skill o' puttin' words together so  as to make things HAPPEN, R. T.
    Bloss, right here in this city, knows  more in a minute than George Waldo
    Emerson ever knew in his whole life!"

    "You--you may be--" Bibbs said, indistinctly, the last word smothered  in a
    cough.

    "Of COURSE I'm right!  And if it ain't just like you to want to take up  with
    the most out-o'-date kind o' writin' there is! 'Poems and essays'!   My Lord,
    Bibbs, that's WOMEN'S work!  You can't pick up a newspaper  without havin' to
    see where Mrs. Rumskididle read a paper on 'Jane Eyre,'  or 'East Lynne,' at
    the God-Knows-What Club.  And 'poetry'!  Why, look at  Edith!  I expect that
    poem o' hers would set a pretty high-water mark for  you, young man, and it's
    the only one she's ever managed to write in her  whole LIFE!  When I wanted
    her to go on and write some more she said it  took too much time.  Said it
    took months and months.  And Edith's a smart  girl; she's got more energy in
    her little finger than you ever give me a  chance to see in your whole body,
    Bibbs.  Now look at the facts: say she  could turn out four or five poems a
    year and you could turn out maybe  two.  That medal she got was worth about
    fifteen dollars, so there's your  income--thirty dollars a year!  That's a
    fine success to make of your  life!  I'm not sayin' a word against poetry.  I
    wouldn't take ten  thousand dollars right now for that poem of Edith's; and
    poetry's all  right enough in its place--but you leave it to the girls.  A
    man's got  to do a man's work in this world!"

    He seated himself in a chair at his son's side and, leaning over, tapped
    Bibbs confidentially on the knee.  "This city's got the greatest future  in
    America, and if my sons behave right by me and by themselves they're  goin' to
    have a mighty fair share of it--a mighty fair share.  I love  this town.  It's
    God's own footstool, and it's made money for me every  day right along, I
    don't know how many years.  I love it like I do my own  business, and I'd
    fight for it as quick as I'd fight for my own family.   It's a beautiful town.
    Look at our wholesale district; look at any  district you want to; look at the
    park system we're puttin' through, and  the boulevards and the public
    statuary.  And she grows.  God! how she  grows!"  He had become intensely
    grave; he spoke with solemnity.  "Now,  Bibbs,  I can't take any of it--nor
    any gold or silver nor buildings  nor bonds--away with me in my shroud when I
    have to go.  But I want to  leave my share  in it to my boys.  I've worked for
    it; I've been a  builder and a maker; and two blades of grass have grown where
    one grew  before, whenever I laid my hand on the ground and willed 'em to
    grow.   I've built big, and I want the buildin' to go on.  And when my last
    hour  comes I want to know that my boys are ready to take charge; that they're
    fit to take charge and go ON with it.  Bibbs, when that hour comes I  want to
    know that my boys are big men, ready and fit to hold of big  things.  Bibbs,
    when I'm up above I want to know that the big share I've  made mine, here
    below, is growin' bigger and bigger in the charge of my  boys."

    He leaned back, deeply moved.  "There!" he said, huskily.  "I've never  spoken
    more what was in my heart in my life.  I do it because I want you  to
    understand--and not think me a mean father.  I never had to talk  that way to
    Jim and Roscoe.  They understood without any talk, Bibbs."

    "I see," said Bibbs.  "At least I think I do.  But--"

    "Wait a minute!"  Sheridan raised his hand.  "If you see the least bit in  the
    world, then you understand how it feels to me to have my son set here  and
    talk about 'poems and essays' and such-like fooleries.  And you must
    understand, too, what it meant to start one o' my boys and have him come  back
    on me the way you did, and have to be sent to a sanitarium because  he
    couldn't stand work.  Now, let's get right down to it, Bibbs.  I've  had a
    whole lot o' talk with ole Doc Gurney about you, one time another,  and I
    reckon I understand your case just about as well as he does,  anyway!  Now
    here, I'll be frank with you.  I started you in harder than  what I did the
    other boys, and that was for your own good, because I saw  you needed to be
    shook up more'n they did.  You were always kind of moody  and mopish--and you
    needed work that 'd keep you on the jump.  Now, why  did it make you sick
    instead of brace you up and make a man of you the  way it ought of done?  I
    pinned ole Gurney down to it.  I says, 'Look  here, ain't it really because he
    just plain hated it?' 'Yes,' he says,  'that's it.  If he'd enjoyed it, it
    wouldn't 'a' hurt him.  He loathes it,  and that affects his nervous system
    The more he tries it, the more he  hates it; and the more he hates it, the
    more injury it does him.'  That  ain't quite his words, but it's what he
    meant.  And that's about the way  it is."

    "Yes," said Bibbs, "that's about the way it is."

    "Well, then, I reckon it's up to me not only to make you do it, but to  make
    you like it!"

    Bibbs shivered.  And he turned upon his father a look that was almost
    ghostly.  "I can't," he said, in a low voice.  "I can't."

    "Can't go back to the shop?"

    "No. Can't like it.  I can't."

    Sheridan jumped up, his patience gone.  To his own view, he had reasoned
    exhaustively, had explained fully and had pleaded more than a father  should,
    only to be met in the end with the unreasoning and mysterious  stubbornness
    which had been Bibbs's baffling characteristic from  childhood.  "By George,
    you will!" he cried.  "You'll go back there and  you'll like it!  Gurney says
    it won't hurt you if you like it, and he  says it 'll kill you if you go back
    and hate it; so it looks as if it was  about up to you not to hate it.  Well,
    Gurney's a fool!  Hatin' work  doesn't kill anybody; and this isn't goin' to
    kill you, whether you hate  it or not.   I've never made a mistake in a
    serious matter in my life,  and it wasn't a mistake my sendin' you there in
    the first place.  And I'm  goin' to prove it--I'm goin' to send you back there
    and vindicate my  judgment.  Gurney says it's all 'mental attitude.'  Well,
    you're goin' to  learn the right one!  He says in a couple more months this
    fool thing  that's been the matter with you 'll be disappeared completely and
    you'll  be back in as good or better condition than you were before you ever
    went  into the shop.  And right then is when you begin over--right in that
    same shop!  Nobody can call me a hard man or a mean father.  I do the  best I
    can for my chuldern, and I take full responsibility for bringin'  my sons up
    to be men.  Now, so far, I've failed with you.  But I'm not  goin' to keep ON
    failin'.  I never tackled a job YET I didn't put  through, and I'm not goin'
    to begin with my own son.  I'm goin' to make  a MAN of you.  By God!  I am!"

    Bibbs rose and went slowly to the door, where he turned.  "You say you  give
    me a couple of months?" he said.

    Sheridan pushed a bell-button on his desk.  "Gurney said two months more
    would put you back where you were.  You go home and begin to get yourself  in
    the right 'mental attitude' before those two months are up!  Good-by!"

    "Good-by, sir," said Bibbs, meekly.

    Bibbs's room, that neat apartment for transients to which the "lamidal"
    George had shown him upon his return, still bore the appearance of  temporary
    quarters, possibly because Bibbs had no clear conception of  himself as a
    permanent incumbent.  However, he had set upon the  mantelpiece the two
    photographs that he owned: one, a "group" twenty  years old--his father and
    mother, with Jim and Roscoe as boys--and  the other a "cabinet" of Edith at
    sixteen.  And upon a table were the  books he had taken from his trunk: Sartor
    Resartus, Virginibus Puerisque,  Huckleberry Finn, and Afterwhiles.  There
    were some other books in the  trunk--a large one, which remained unremoved at
    the foot of the bed,  adding to the general impression of transiency.  It
    contained nearly all  the possessions as well as the secret life of Bibbs
    Sheridan, and Bibbs  sat beside it, the day after his interview with his
    father, raking over a  small collection of manuscripts in the top tray.  Some
    of these he  glanced through dubiously, finding little comfort in them; but
    one made  him smile.  Then he shook his head ruefully indeed, and ruefully
    began to  read it.  It was written on paper stamped "Hood Sanitarium," and
    bore the  title, "Leisure."

         A man may keep a quiet heart at seventy miles an hour, but not if  he is
    running the train.  Nor is the habit of contemplation a useful quality  in the
    stoker of a foundry furnace; it will not be found to recommend him to  the
    approbation of his superiors.  For a profession adapted solely to the  pursuit
    of happiness in thinking, I would choose that of an invalid: his  money is
    time and he may spend it on Olympus.  It will not suffice to be  an amateur
    invalid.  To my way of thinking, the perfect practitioner must be to all
    outward purposes already dead if he is to begin the perfect  enjoyment of
    life.  His serenity must not be disturbed by rumors of  recovery; he must lie
    serene in his long chair in the sunshine. The world  must be on the other side
    of the wall, and the wall must be so thick and  so high that he cannot hear
    the roaring of the furnace fires and the  screaming of the whistles.  Peace--

    Having read so far as the word "peace," Bibbs suffered an interruption
    interesting as a coincidence of contrast.  High voices sounded in the  hall
    just outside his door; and it became evident that a woman's quarrel  was in
    progress, the parties to it having begun it in Edith's room, and  continuing
    it vehemently as they came out into the hall.

    "Yes, you BETTER go home!" Bibbs heard his sister vociferating, shrilly.  "You
    better go home and keep your mind a little more on your HUSBAND!"

    "Edie, Edie!" he heard his mother remonstrating, as peacemaker.

    "You see here!"  This was Sibyl, and her voice was both acrid and  tremulous.
    "Don't you talk to me that way!  I came here to tell Mother  Sheridan what I'd
    heard, and to let her tell Father Sheridan if she  thought she ought to, and I
    did it for your own good."

    "Yes, you did!"  And Edith's gibing laughter tooted loudly.  "Yes, you  did!
    YOU didn't have any other reason!  OH no!  YOU don't want to break  it up
    between Bobby Lamhorn and me because--"

    "Edie, Edie!  Now, now!"

    "Oh, hush up, mamma!  I'd like to know, then, if she says her new friends
    tell her he's got such a reputation that he oughtn't to come here, what  about
    his not going to HER house. How--"

    "I've explained that to Mother Sheridan."  Sibyl's voice indicated that  she
    was descending the stairs.  "Married people are not the same.  Some  things
    that should be shielded from a young girl--"

    This seemed to have no very soothing effect upon Edith.  "'Shielded from a
    young girl'!" she shrilled.  "You seem pretty willing to be the shield!   You
    look out Roscoe doesn't notice what kind of a shield you are!"

    Sibyl's answer was inaudible, but Mrs. Sheridan's flurried attempts at
    pacification were renewed.  "Now, Edie, Edie, she means it for your good,  and
    you'd oughtn't to--"

    "Oh, hush up, mamma, and let me alone!  If you dare tell papa--"

    "Now, now!  I'm not going to tell him to-day, and maybe--"

    "You've got to promise NEVER to tell him!" the girl cried, passionately.

    "Well, we'll see.  You just come back in your own room, and we'll--"

    "No!  I WON'T 'talk it over'!  Stop pulling me!  Let me ALONE!"  And  Edith,
    flinging herself violently upon Bibbs's door, jerked it open,  swung round it
    into the room, slammed the door behind her, and threw  herself, face down,
    upon the bed in such a riot of emotion that she had  no perception of Bibbs's
    presence in the room.  Gasping and sobbing in a  passion of tears, she beat
    the coverlet and pillows with her clenched  fists. "Sneak!" she babbled aloud.
    "Sneak! Snake-in-the-grass!  Cat!"

    Bibbs saw that she did not know he was there, and he went softly toward  the
    door, hoping to get away before she became aware of him; but some  sound of
    his movement reached her, and she sat up, startled, facing him.

    "Bibbs!  I thought I saw you go out awhile ago."

    "Yes.  I came back, though.  I'm sorry--"

    "Did you hear me quarreling with Sibyl?"

    "Only what you said in the hall.  You lie down again, Edith.  I'm going  out."

    "No; don't go."  She applied a handkerchief to her eyes, emitted a sob,  and
    repeated her request.  "Don't go.  I don't mind you; you're quiet,  anyhow.
    Mamma's so fussy, and never gets anywhere.  I don't mind you at  all, but I
    wish you'd sit down."

    "All right."  And he returned to his chair beside the trunk.  "Go ahead  and
    cry all you want, Edith," he said.  "No harm in that!"

    "Sibyl told mamma--OH!" she began, choking.  "Mary Vertrees had mamma  and
    Sibyl and I to tea, one afternoon two weeks or so ago, and she had  some women
    there that Sibyl's been crazy to get in with, and she just  laid herself out
    to make a hit with 'em, and she's been running after 'em  ever since, and now
    she comes over here and says THEY say Bobby Lamhorn  is so bad that, even
    though they like his family, none of the nice people  in town would let him in
    their houses.  In the first place, it's a  falsehood, and I don't believe a
    word of it; and in the second place I  know the reason she did it, and, what's
    more, she KNOWS I know it!  I  won't SAY what it is--not yet--because papa and
    all of you would  think I'm as crazy as she is snaky; and Roscoe's such a fool
    he'd  probably quit speaking to me.  But it's true!  Just you watch her;
    that's  all I ask.  Just you watch that woman.  You'll see!"

    As it happened, Bibbs was literally watching "that woman."  Glancing from  the
    window, he saw Sibyl pause upon the pavement in front of the old  house next
    door.  She stood a moment, in deep thought, then walked  quickly up the path
    to the door, undoubtedly with the intention of  calling.  But he did not
    mention this to his sister, who, after  delivering herself of a rather vague
    jeremiad upon the subject of her  sister-in-law's treacheries, departed to her
    own chamber, leaving him to  his speculations.  The chief of these concerned
    the social elasticities  of women.  Sibyl had just been a participant in a
    violent scene; she had  suffered hot insult of a kind that could not fail to
    set her quivering  with resentment; and yet she elected to betake herself to
    the presence of  people whom she knew no more than "formally."  Bibbs
    marveled.  Surely,  he reflected, some traces of emotion must linger upon
    Sibyl's face or in  her manner;  she could not have ironed it all quite out in
    the three or  four minutes it took her to reach the Vertreeses' door.

    And in this he was not mistaken, for Mary Vertrees was at that moment
    wondering what  internal excitement Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan was striving to
    master.  But  Sibyl had no idea that she was allowing herself to exhibit
    anything  except the gaiety which she conceived proper to the manner of a
    casual  caller.  She was wholly intent upon fulfilling the sudden purpose that
    brought her, and she was no more self-conscious than she was finely
    intelligent.  For Sibyl Sheridan belonged to a type Scriptural in its
    antiquity.  She was merely the idle and half-educated intriguer who may  and
    does delude men, of course, and the best and dullest of her own sex  as well,
    finding invariably strong supporters among these latter.  It is  a type that
    has wrought some damage in the world and would have wrought  greater, save for
    the check put upon its power by intelligent women and  by its own "lack of
    perspective," for it is a type that never sees  itself.  Sibyl followed her
    impulses with no reflection or question--it  was like a hound on the gallop
    after a master on horseback.  She had not  even the instinct to stop and
    consider her effect.  If she wished to make  a certain impression she believed
    that she made it.  She believed that  she was believed.

    "My mother asked me to say that she was sorry she couldn't come down,"  Mary
    said, when they were seated.

    Sibyl ran the scale of a cooing simulance of laughter, which she had been
    brought up to consider the polite thing to do after a remark addressed to  her
    by any person with whom she was not on familiar terms.  It was  intended
    partly as a courtesy and partly as the foundation for an  impression of
    sweetness.

    "Just thought I'd fly in a minute," she said, continuing the cooing to
    relieve the last doubt of her gentiality.  "I thought I'd just behave like
    REAL country neighbors.  We are almost out in the country, so far from
    down-town, aren't we?  And it seemed such a LOVELY day!  I wanted to tell  you
    how much I enjoyed meeting those nice people at tea that afternoon.   You see,
    coming here a bride and never having lived here before, I've had  to depend on
    my husband's friends almost entirely, and I really 've known  scarcely
    anybody.  Mr. Sheridan has been so engrossed in business ever  since he was a
    mere boy, why, of course--"

    She paused, with the air of having completed an explanation.

    "Of course," said Mary, sympathetically accepting it.

    "Yes.  I've been seeing quite a lot of the Kittersbys since that  afternoon,"
    Sibyl went on.  "They're really delightful people.  Indeed  they are!  Yes--"

    She stopped with unconscious abruptness, her mind plainly wandering to
    another matter; and Mary perceived that she had come upon a definite  errand.
    Moreover, a tensing of Sibyl's eyelids, in that moment of  abstraction as she
    looked aside from her hostess, indicated that the  errand was a serious one
    for the caller and easily to be connected with  the slight but perceptible
    agitation underlying her assumption of  cheerful ease.   There was a
    restlessnes of breathing, a restlessness of  hands.

    "Mrs. Kittersby and her daughter were chatting about some to the people  here
    in town the other day," said Sibyl, repeating the cooing and  protracting it.
    "They said something that took ME by surprise!  We were  talking about our
    mutual friend, Mr. Robert Lamhorn--"

    Mary interrupted her promptly.  "Do you mean 'mutual' to include my  mother
    and me?" she asked.

    "Why, yes; the Kittersbys and you and all of us Sheridans, I mean."

    "No," said Mary.  "We shouldn't consider Mr. Robert Lamhorn a friend of
    ours."

    To her surprise, Sibyl nodded eagerly, as if greatly pleased.  "That's  just
    the way Mrs. Kittersby talked!" she cried, with a vehemence that  made Mary
    stare.  "Yes, and I hear that's the way ALL you old families  here speak of
    him!"

    Mary looked aside, but otherwise she was able to maintain her composure.   "I
    had the impression he was a friend of yours," she said; adding,  hastily, "and
    your husband's"

    "Oh yes," said the caller, absently.  "He is, certainly.  A man's  reputation
    for a little gaiety oughtn't to make a great difference to  married people, of
    course.  It's where young girls are in question.  THEN  it may be very, very
    dangerous.  There are a great many things safe and  proper for married people
    that might be awf'ly imprudent for a young  girl.  Don't you agree, Miss
    Vertrees?"

    "I don't know," returned the frank Mary.  "Do you mean that you intend to
    remain a friend of Mr. Lamhorn's, but disapprove of Miss Sheridan's doing
    so?"

    "That's it exactly!" was the naive and ardent response of Sibyl.  "What I
    feel about it is that a man with his reputation isn't at all suitable for
    Edith, and the family ought to be made to understand it.  I tell you,"  she
    cried, with a sudden access of vehemence, "her father ought to put  his foot
    down!"

    Her eyes flashed with a green spark; something seemed to leap out and then
    retreat, but not before Mary had caught a glimpse of it, as one might  catch a
    glimpse of a thing darting forth and then scuttling back into  hiding under a
    bush.

    "Of course," said Sibyl, much more composedly, "I hardly need say that  it's
    entirely on Edith's account that I'm worried about this.  I'm as  fond of
    Edith as if she was really my sister, and I can't help fretting  about it.  It
    would break my heart to have Edith's life spoiled."

    This tune was off the key, to Mary's ear.  Sibyl tried to sing with  pathos,
    but she flatted.

    And when a lady receives a call from another who suffers under the stress  of
    some feeling which she wishes to conceal, there is not uncommonly  developed a
    phenomenon of duality comparable to the effect obtained by  placing two
    mirrors opposite each other, one clear and the other flawed.   In this case,
    particularly, Sibyl had an imperfect consciousness   of  Mary.  The Mary
    Vertrees that she saw was merely something to be cozened  to her own frantic
    purpose--a Mary Vertrees who was incapable of  penetrating that purpose.
    Sibyl sat there believing that she was  projecting the image of herself that
    she desired to project, never  dreaming that with every word, every look, and
    every gesture she was more  and more fully disclosing the pitiable truth to
    the clear eyes of Mary.   And the Sibyl that Mary saw was an overdressed
    woman, in manner half  rustic, and in mind as shallow as a pan, but possessed
    by emotions that  appeared to be strong--perhaps even violent.  What those
    emotions were  Mary had not guessed, but she began to suspect.

    "And Edith's life WOULD be spoiled," Sibyl continued.  "It would be a
    dreadful thing for the whole family.  She's the very apple of Father
    Sheridan's eye, and he's as proud of her as he is of Jim and Roscoe.  It
    would be a horrible thing for him to have her marry a man like Robert
    Lamhorn; but he doesn't KNOW anything about him, and if somebody  doesn't tell
    him, what I'm most afraid of is that Edith might get his  consent and hurry on
    the wedding before he finds out, and then it would  be too late.  You see,
    Miss Vertrees, it's very difficult for me to  decide just what it's my duty to
    do."

    "I see," said Mary, looking at her thoughtfully, "Does Miss Sheridan seem
    to--to care very much about him?"

    "He's deliberately fascinated her," returned the visitor, beginning to
    breathe quickly and heavily.  "Oh, she wasn't difficult!  She knew she  wasn't
    in right in this town, and she was crazy to meet the people that  were, and
    she thought he was one of 'em.  But that was only the start  that made it easy
    for him--and he didn't need it.  He could have done  it, anyway!" Sibyl was
    launched now; her eyes were furious and her voice  shook.  "He went after her
    deliberately, the way he does everything; he's  as cold-blooded as a fish.
    All he cares about is his own pleasure, and  lately he's decided it would be
    pleasant to get hold of a piece of real  money--and there was Edith!  And
    he'll marry her!  Nothing on earth can  stop him unless he finds out she won't
    HAVE any money if she marries him,  and the only person that could make him
    understand that is Father  Sheridan.  Somehow, that's got to be managed,
    because Lamhorn is going to  hurry it on as fast as he can.  He told me so
    last night.  He said he was  going to marry her the first minute he could
    persuade her to it--and  little Edith's all ready to be persuaded!"  Sibyl's
    eyes flashed green  again.  "And he swore he'd do it," she panted.  "He swore
    he'd marry  Edith Sheridan, and nothing on earth could stop him!"

    And then Mary understood.  Her lips parted and she stared at the babbling
    creature incredulously, a sudden vivid  picture in her mind, a canvas of
    unconscious Sibyl's painting.  Mary beheld it with pity and horror: she  saw
    Sibyl clinging to Robert Lamhorn, raging, in a whisper, perhaps-- for Roscoe
    might have been in the house, or servants might have head.   She saw Sibyl
    entreating, beseeching, threatening despairingly, and  Lamhorn--tired of
    her--first evasive, then brutally letting her have  the truth; and at last,
    infuriated, "swearing" to marry her rival.  If  Sibyl had not babbled out the
    word "swore" it might have been less plain.

    The poor woman blundered on, wholly unaware of what he had confessed.   "You
    see," she said, more quietly, "whatever's going to be done ought to  done
    right away.  I went over and told Mother Sheridan what I'd heard  about
    Lamhorn--oh, I was open and aboveboard!  I told her right before  Edith.  I
    think it ought all to be done with perfect frankness, because  nobody can say
    it isn't for the girl's own good and what her best friend  would do.  But
    Mother Sheridan's under Edith's thumb, and she's afraid to  ever come right
    out with anything.  Father Sheridan's different.  Edith  can get anything she
    wants out of him in the way of money or ordinary  indulgence, but when it
    comes to a matter like this he'd be a steel  rock.  If it's a question of his
    will against anybody else's he'd make  his will rule if it killed 'em both!
    Now, he'd never in the world let  Lamhorn come near the house again if he knew
    his reputation.  So, you  see, somebody's got to tell him.  It isn't a very
    easy position for me,  is it, Miss Vertrees?"

    "No," said Mary, gravely.

    "Well, to be frank," said Sibyl, smiling, "that's why I've come to you."

    "To ME!"  Mary frowned.

    Sibyl rippled and cooed again.  "There isn't ANYBODY even made such a hit
    with Father Sheridan in his life as you have.  And of course we ALL hope
    you're not going to be exactly an outsider in the affairs of the  family!"
    (This sally with another and louder effect of laughter.)  "And  if it's MY
    duty, why, in a way, I think it might be thought yours, too."

    "No, no!" exclaimed Mary, sharply.

    "Listen," said Sibyl.  "Now suppose I go to Father Sheridan with this  story,
    and Edith says it's not true; suppose she says Lamhorn has a good  reputation
    and that I'm repeating irresponsible gossip, or suppose  (what's most likely)
    she loses her temper and says I invented it, then  what am I going to do?
    Father Sheridan doesn't know Mrs. Kittersby and  her daughter, and they're out
    of the question, anyway.  But suppose I  could say: 'All right, if you want
    proof, ask Miss Vertrees.  She came  with me, and she's waiting in the next
    room right now, to--"

    "No, no," said Mary, quickly.  "You mustn't--"

    "Listen just a minute more," Sibyl urged, confidingly.  She was on easy
    ground now, to her own mind, and had no doubt of her success.  "You  naturally
    don't want to begin by taking part in a family quarrel, but if  YOU take part
    in it, it won't be one.  You don't know yourself what  weight you carry over
    there, and no one would have the right to say you  did it except out of the
    purest kindness.  Don't you see that Jim and his  father would admire you all
    the more for it?  Miss Vertrees, listen!   Don't you see we OUGHT to do it,
    you and I?  Do you suppose Robert  Lamhorn cares a snap of his finger for her?
    Do you suppose a man like  him would LOOK at Edith Sheridan if it wasn't for
    the money?"  And again  Sibyl's emotion rose to the surface.  "I tell you he's
    after nothing on  earth but to get his finger in that old man's money-pile,
    over there,  next door!  He'd marry ANYBODY to do it.  Marry Edith?" she
    cried.  "I  tell you he'd marry their nigger cook for THAT!"

    She stopped, afraid--at the wrong time--that she had been too  vehement, but a
    glace at Mary reassured her, and Sibyl decided that she  had produced the
    effect she wished.  Mary was not looking at her; she was  staring straight
    before her at the wall, her eyes wide and shining.  She  became visibly a
    little paler as Sibyl looked at her.

    "After nothing on earth but to get his finger in that old man's  money-pile,
    over there, next door!"  The voice was vulgar, the words were  vulgar--and the
    plain truth was vulgar!  How it rang in Mary Vertrees's  ears!  The clear
    mirror had caught its own image clearly in the flawed  one at last.

    Sibyl put forth her best bid to clench the matter.  She offered her  bargain.
    "Now don't you worry," she said, sunnily, "about this setting  Edith against
    you.  She'll get over it after a while, anyway, but if she  tried to be
    spiteful and make it uncomfortable for you when you drop in  over there, or
    managed so as to sort of leave you out, why, I've got a  house, and Jim likes
    to come there.  I don't THINK Edith WOULD be that  way; she's too crazy to
    have you take her around with the smart crowd,  but if she DID, you needn't
    worry.  And another thing--I guess you  won't mind Jim's own sister-in-law
    speaking of it.  Of course, I don't  know just how matters stand between you
    and Jim, but Jim and Roscoe are  about as much alike as two brothers can be,
    and Roscoe was very slow  making up his mind; sometimes I used to think he
    actually never WOULD.   Now, what I mean is, sisters-in-law can do lots of
    things to help matters  on like that.  There's lots of little things can be
    said, and lots--"

    She stopped, puzzled.  Mary Vertrees had gone from pale to scarlet, and  now,
    still scarlet indeed, she rose, without a word of explanation, or  any other
    kind of word, and walked slowly to the open door and out of the  room.

    Sibyl was a little taken aback.  She supposed Mary had remembered  something
    neglected and necessary for the instruction of a servant, and  that she would
    return in a moment; but it was rather a rude excess of  absent-mindedness not
    to have excused herself, especially as her guest  was talking.  And, Mary's
    return being delayed, Sibyl found time to think  this unprefaced exit odder
    and ruder than she had first considered it.   There might have been more
    excuse for it, she thought, had she been  speaking of matters less
    important--offering to do the girl all the  kindness in her power, too!

    Sibyl yawned and swung her muff impatiently; she examined the sole of her
    show; she decided on a new shape of heel; she made an inventory of the
    furniture of the room, of the rugs, of the wall-paper and engravings.   Then
    she looked at her watch and frowned; went to a window and stood  looking out
    upon the brown lawn, then came back to the chair she had  abandoned, and sat
    again.  There was no sound in the house.

    A strange expression began imperceptibly to alter the planes of her face,  and
    slowly she grew as scarlet as Mary--scarlet to the ears.  She looked  at her
    watch again--and twenty-five minutes had elapsed since she had  looked at it
    before.

    She went into the hall, glanced over her shoulder oddly; then she let  herself
    softly out of the front door, and went across the street to her  own house.

    Roscoe met her upon the threshold, gloomily.  "Saw you from the window,"  he
    explained.  "You must find a lot to say to that old lady."

    "What old lady?"

    "Mrs. Vertrees.  I been waiting for you a long time, and I saw the  daughter
    come out, fifteen minutes ago, and post a letter, and then walk  on up the
    street.  Don't stand out on the porch," he said, crossly.   "Come in here.
    There's something it's come time I'll have to talk to you  about.  Come in!"

    But as she was moving to obey he glanced across at his father's house and
    started.  He lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the setting sun,  staring
    fixedly.  "Something's the matter over there," he muttered, and  then, more
    loudly, as alarm came into his voice, he said, "What's the  matter over
    there?"

    Bibbs dashed out of the gate in an automobile set at its hightest speed,  and
    as he saw Roscoe he made a genture singularly eloquent of calamity,  and was
    lost at once in a cloud of dust down the street.  Edith had  followed part of
    the way down the drive, and it could be seen that she  was crying bitterly.
    She lifted both arms to Roscoe, summoning him.

    "By George!" gasped Roscoe.  "I believe somebody's dead!"

    And he started for the New House at a run.

    Sheridan had decided to conclude his day's work early that afternoon, and  at
    about two o'clock he left his office with a man of affairs from  foreign
    parts, who had traveled far for a business conference with  Sheridan and his
    colleagues.  Herr Favre, in spite of his French name,  was a gentleman of
    Bavaria.  It was his first visit to our country, and  Sheridan took pleasure
    in showing him the sights of the country's finest  city.  They got into an
    open car at the main entrance of the Sheridan  Building, and were driven
    first, slowly and momentously, through the  wholesale district and the retail
    district; then more rapidly they  inspected the packing-houses and the
    stock-yards; then skirmished over  the "park system" and "boulevards"; and
    after that whizzed through the  "residence section" on their way to the
    factories and foundries.

    "All cray," observed Herr Favre, smilingly.

    "'Cray'?" echoed Sheridan.  "I don't know what you mean. 'Cray'?"

    "No white," said Herr Favre, with a wave of his hand toward the long rows  of
    houses on both sides of the street.  "No white lace window-curtains;  all cray
    lace window-curtains."

    "Oh. I see!"  Sheridan laughed indulgently.  "You mean 'GRAY.'  No, they
    ain't, they're white.  I never saw any gray ones."

    Herr Favre shook his head, much amused.  "There are NO white ones," he  said.
    "There is no white ANYTHING in your city; no white  window-curtains, no white
    house, no white peeble!"  He pointed upward.   "Smoke!"  Then he sniffed the
    air and clasped his nose between forefinger  and thumb.  "Smoke!  Smoke
    ef'rywhere.  Smoke in your insites."  He  tapped his chest.  "Smoke in your
    lunks!"

    "Oh!  SMOKE!"  Sheridan cried with gusto, drawing in a deep breath and
    patently finding it delicious.  "You BET we got smoke!"

    "Exbensif!" said Herr Favre.  "Ruins foliage; ruins fabrics.  Maybe in  summer
    it iss not so bad, but I wonder your wifes will bear it."

    Sheridan laughed uproariously.  "They know it means new spring hats for 'em!"

    "They must need many, too!" said the vistior.  "New hats, new all things,  but
    nothing white.  In Munchen we could not do it; we are a safing peeble."

    "Where's that?"

    "In Munchen.  You say 'Munich.'"

    "Well, I never been to Munich, but I took in the Mediterranean trip, and  I
    tell you, outside o' some right good scenery, all I saw was mighty  dirty and
    mighty shiftless and mighty run-down at the heel.  Now comin'  right down TO
    it, Mr. Farver, wouldn't you rather live here in this town  than in Munich?  I
    know you got more enterprise up there than the part of  the old country I saw,
    and I know YOU'RE a live business man and you're  associated with others like
    you, but when it comes to LIVIN' in a place,  wouldn't you heap rather be here
    than over there?"

    "For me," said Herr Favre, "no.  Here I should not think I was living.   It
    would be like the miner who goes into the mine to work; nothing else."

    "We got a good many good citizens here from your part o' the world.  THEY
    like it."

    "Oh yes."  And Herr Favre laughed deprecatingly.  "The first generation,  they
    bring their Germany with them; then, after that, they are Americans,  like
    you."  He tapped his host's big knee genially.  "You are patriot; so  are
    they."

    "Well, I reckon you must be a pretty hot little patriot yourself, Mr.
    Farver!" Sheridan exclaimed, gaily.  "You certainly stand up for your own
    town, if you stick to sayin' you'd rather live there than you would  here.
    Yes, SIR!  You sure are some patriot to say THAT--after you've  seen our city!
    It ain't reasonable in you, but I must say I kind of  admire you for it; every
    man ought to stick up for his own, even when he  sees the other fellow's got
    the goods on him.  Yet I expect way down deep  in your heart, Mr. Farver,
    you'd rather live right here than any place  else in the world, if you had
    your choice.  Man alive! this is God's  country, Mr. Farver, and a blind man
    couldn't help seein' it!  You  couldn't stand where you do in a business way
    and NOT see it.  Soho,  boy!  Here we are.  This is the big works, and I'll
    show you something  now that 'll make your eyes stick out!"

    They had arrived at the Pump Works; and for an hour Mr. Favre was  personally
    conducted and personally instructed by the founder and  president, the buzzing
    queen bee of those buzzing hives.

    "Now I'll take you for a spin in the country," said Sheridan, when at  last
    they came out to the car again.  "We'll take a breezer."  But, with  his foot
    on the step, he paused to hail a neat young man who came out of  the office
    smiling a greeting.   "Hello, young fellow!" Sheridan said,  heartily.  "On
    the job, are you , Jimmie?  Ha!  They don't catch you OFF  of it very often, I
    guess, though I do hear you go automobile-ridin' in  the country sometimes
    with a mighty fine-lookin' girl settin' up beside  you!"  He roared with
    laughter, clapping his son upon the shoulder.   "That's all right with me--if
    it is with HER!  So, Jimmie?  Well, when  we goin' to move into your new
    warehouses?  Monday?"

    "Sunday, if you want to," said Jim.

    "No!" cried his father, delighted.  "Don't tell me you're goin' to keep  your
    word about dates!  That's no way to do contractin'!  Never heard of  a
    contractor yet didn't want more time."

    "They'll be all ready for you on the minute," said Jim.  "I'm going over  both
    of 'em now, with Links and Sherman, from foundation to roof.  I  guess they'll
    pass inspection, too!"

    "Well, then, when you get through with that," said his father, "you go and
    take your girl out ridin'.  By George! you've earned it!  You tell her  you
    stand high with ME!"  He stepped into the car, waving a waggish  farewell, and
    when the wheels were in motion again, he turned upon his  companion a broad
    face literally shining with pride.  "That's my boy  Jimmie!" he said.

    "Fine young man, yes," said Herr Favre.

    "I got two o' the finest boys," said Sheridan, "I got two o' the finest  boys
    God ever made, and that's a fact, Mr. Farver!  Jim's the oldest, and  I tell
    you they got to get up the day before if they expect to catch HIM  in bed!  My
    other boy, Roscoe, he's always to the good, too, but Jim's a  wizard.  You saw
    them two new-process warehouses, just about finished?   Well, JIM built 'em.
    I'll tell you about that, Mr. Farver."  And he  recited this history,
    describing the new process at length; in fact, he  had such pride in Jim's
    achievement that he told Herr Favre all about it  more than once.

    "Fine young man, yes," repeated the good Munchner, three-quarters of an  hour
    later.  They were many miles out in the open country by this time.

    "He is that!" said Sheridan, adding, as if confidentially: "I got a fine
    family, Mr. Farver--fine chuldern.  I got a daughter now; you take her  and
    put her anywhere you please, and she'll shine up with ANY of 'em.   There's
    culture and refinement and society in this town by the car-load,  and here
    lately she's been gettin' right in the thick of it--her and my
    daughter-in-law, both.  I got a mighty fine daughter-in-law, Mr. Farver.   I'm
    goin' to get you up for a meal with us before you leave town, and  you'll
    see--and, well, sir, from all I hear the two of 'em been holdin'  their own
    with the best.  Myself, I and the wife never had time for much  o' that kind
    o' doin's, but it's all right and good for the chuldern; and  my daughter
    she's always kind of taken to it.  I'll read you a poem she  wrote when I get
    you up at the house.  She wrote it in school and took  the first prize for
    poetry with it.  I tell you they don't make 'em any  smarter 'n that girl, Mr.
    Farver.  Yes, sir; take us all round, we're a  pretty happy family; yes, sir.
    Roscoe hasn't got any chuldern yet, and I  haven't ever spoke to him and his
    wife about it--it's kind of a  delicate matter--but it's about time the wife
    and I saw some  gran'-chuldern growin' up around us.  I certainly do hanker
    for about  four or five little curly-headed rascals to take on my knee.  Boys,
    I  hope, o' course; that's only natural.  Jim's got his eye on a mighty
    splendid-lookin' girl; lives right next door to us.  I expect you heard  me
    joshin' him about it back yonder.  She's one of the ole blue-bloods  here, and
    I guess it was a mighty good stock--to raise HER!  She's one  these girls that
    stand tight up and look at you!  And pretty?  She's the  prettiest thing you
    ever saw!  Good size, too; good health and good  sense.  Jim 'll be just right
    if he gets her.  I must say it tickles ME to  think o' the way that boy took
    ahold o' that job back yonder.  Four  months and a half!  Yes, sir--"

    He expanded this theme once more; and thus he continued to entertain the
    stranger throughout the long drive.  Darkness had fallen before they  reached
    the city on their return, and it was after five when Sheridan  allowed Herr
    Favre to descend at the door of his hotel, where boys were  shrieking extra
    editions of the evening paper.

    "Now, good night, Mr. Farver," said Sheridan, leaning from the car to  shake
    hands with his guest.  "Don't forget I'm goin' to come around and  take you up
    to--Go on away, boy!"

    A newsboy had thrust himself almost between them, yelling, "Extry!  Secon'
    Extry.  Extry, all about the horrable acciDENT.  Extry!"

    "Get out!" laughed Sheridan.  "Who wants to read about accidents?  Get out!"

    The boy moved away philosophically.  "Extry!  Extry!" he shrilled.   "Three
    men killed!  Extry!  Millionaire killed!  Two other men killed!   Extry!
    Extry!"

    "Don't forget, Mr. Farver." Sheridan completed his interrupted  farewells.
    "I'll come by to take you up to our house for dinner.  I'll  be here for you
    about half-past five to-morrow afternoon.  Hope you  'njoyed the drive much as
    I have.  Good night--good night!"  He leaned  back, speaking to the chauffer.
    "Now you can take me around to the  Central City barber-shop, boy.  I want to
    get a shave 'fore I go up home."

    "Extry!  Extry!" screamed the newsboys, zig-zagging among the crowds like
    bats in the dusk.  "Extry!  All about the horrable acciDENT!  Extry!"  It
    struck Sheridan that the papers sent out too many "Extras"; they printed
    "Extras" for all sorts of petty crimes and casualties.  It was a mistake,  he
    decided, critically.  Crying "Wolf!" too often wouldn't sell the  goods; it
    was bad business.  The papers would "make more in the long  run," he was sure,
    if they published an "Extra" only when something of  real importance happened.

    "Extry!  All about the hor'ble AX'nt!  Extry!" a boy squawked under his  nose,
    as he descended from the car.

    "Go on away!" said Sheridan, gruffly, though he smiled.  He liked to see  the
    youngsters working so noisily to get on in the world.

    But as he crossed the pavement to the brilliant glass doors of the
    barber-shop, a second newsboy grasped the arm of the one who had thus  cried
    his wares.

    "Say, Yallern," said this second, hoarse with awe, "'n't chew know who  that
    IS?"

    "Who?"

    "It's SHERIDAN!"

    "Jeest!" cried the first, staring insanely.

    At about the same hour, four times a week--Monday, Wednesday, Friday,  and
    Saturday--Sheridan stopped at this shop to be shaved by the head  barber.  The
    barbers were negroes, he was their great man, and it was  their habit to give
    him a "reception," his entrance being always the  signal for a flurry of
    jocular hospitality, followed by general excesses  of briskness and gaiety.
    But it was not so this evening.

    The shop was crowded.  Copies of the "Extra" were being read by men  waiting,
    and by men in the latter stages of treatment.  "Extras" lay upon  vacant seats
    and showed from the pockets of hanging coats.

    There was a loud chatter between the practitioners and their recumbent
    patients, a vocal charivari which stopped abruptly as Sheridan opened the
    door.  His name seemed to fizz in the air like the last sputtering of a
    firework; the barbers stopped shaving and clipping; lathered men turned  their
    prostrate heads to stare, and there was a moment of amazing silence  in the
    shop.

    The head barber, nearest the door, stood like a barber in a tableau.  His
    left hand held stretched between thumb and forefinger an elastic section  of
    his helpless customer's cheek, while his right hand hung poised above  it, the
    razor motionless.  And then, roused from trance by the door's  closing, he
    accepted the fact of Sheridan's presence.  The barber  remembered that there
    are no circumstances in life--or just after it-- under which a man does not
    need to be shaved.

    He stepped forward, profoundly graave.  "I be through with this man in  the
    chair one minute, Mist' Sheridan," he said, in a hushed tone.  "Yessuh." And
    of a solemn negro youth who stood by, gazing stupidly, "You goin'  RESIGN?" he
    demanded in a fierce undertone.  "You goin' take Mist'  Sheridan's coat?"  He
    sent an angry look round the shop, and the barbers,  taking his meaning,
    averted their eyes and fell to work, the murmur of  subdued conversation
    buzzing from chair to chair.

    "You sit down ONE minute, Mist' Sheridan," said the head barber, gently.   "I
    fix nice chair fo' you to wait in."

    "Never mind," said Sheridan.  "Go on get through with your man."

    "Yessuh."  And he went quickly back to his chair on tiptoe, followed by
    Sheridan's puzzled gaze.

    Something had gone wrong in the shop, evidently.  Sheridan did not know  what
    to make of it.  Ordinarily he would have shouted a hilarious demand  for the
    meaning of the mystery, but an inexplicable silence had been  imposed upon him
    by the hush that fell upon his entrance and by the odd  look every man in the
    shop had bent upon him.

    Vaguely disquieted, he walked to one of the seats in the rear of the  shop,
    and looked up and down the two lines of barbers, catching quickly  shifted,
    furtive glances here and there.  He made this brief survey after  wondering if
    one of the barbers had died suddenly, that day, or the night  before; but
    there was no vacancy in either line.

    The seat next to his was unoccupied, but some one had left a copy of the
    "Extra" there, and, frowning, he picked it up and glanced at it.  The  first
    of the swollen display lines had little meaning to him:     Fatally Faulty.
    New Process Roof Collapses Hurling Capitalist     to Death with Inventor.  Seven
    Escape When Crash Comes.  Death    Claims--

    Thus far had he read when a thin hand fell upon the paper, covering the  print
    from his eyes; and, looking up, he saw Bibbs standing before him,  pale and
    gentle, immeasurably compassionate.

    "I've come for you, father," said Bibbs.  "Here's the boy with your coat  and
    hat.  Put them on and come home."

    And even then Sheridan did not understand.  So secure was he in the  strength
    and bigness of everything that was his, he did not know what  calamity had
    befallen him.  But he was frightened.

    Without a word, he followed Bibbs heavily out throught the still shop,  but as
    they reached the pavement he stopped short and, grasping his son's  sleeve
    with shaking fingers, swung him round so that they stood face to  face.

    "What--what--"  His mouth could not do him the service he asked of it,  he was
    so frightened.

    "Extry!" screamed a newsboy straight in his face.  "Young North Side
    millionaire insuntly killed!  Extry!"

    "Not--JIM!" said Sheridan.

    Bibbs caught his father's hand in his own.

    "And YOU come to tell me that?"

    Sheridan did not know what he said.  But in those first words and in the
    first anguish of the big, stricken face Bibbs understood the unuttered  cry of
    accusation:

    "Why wasn't it you?"

    Standing in the black group under gaunt trees at the cemetery, three days
    later, Bibbs unwillingly let an old, old thought become definite in his  mind:
    the sickly brother had buried the strong brother, and Bibbs  wondered how many
    million times that had happened since men first made a  word to name the sons
    of one mother.  Almost literally he had buried his  strong brother, for
    Sheridan had gone to pieces when he saw his dead son. He had nothing to help
    him meet the shock, neither definite religion nor  "philosophy" definite or
    indefinite.  He could only beat his forehead and  beg, over and over, to be
    killed with an ax, while his wife was helpless  except to entreat him not to
    "take on," herself adding a continuous  lamentation.  Edith, weeping, made
    truce with Sibyl and saw to it that  the mourning garments were beyond
    criticism.  Roscoe was dazed, and he  shirked, justifying himself curiously be
    saying he "never had any  experience in such matters."  So it was Bibbs, the
    shy outsider, who  became, during this dreadful little time, the master of the
    house; for as  strange a thing as that, sometimes, may be the result of a
    death.  He met  the relatives from out of town at the station; he set the time
    for the  funeral and the time for meals; he selected the flowers and he
    selected  Jim's coffin; he did all the grim things and all the other things.
    Jim  had belonged to an order of Knights, who lengthened the rites with a
    picturesque ceremony of their own, and at first Bibbs wished to avoid  this,
    but upon reflection he offered no objection--he divined that the  Knights and
    their service would be not precisely a consolation, but a  satisfaction to his
    father.  So the Knights led the procession, with  their band playing a dirge
    part of the long way to the cemetery; and then  turned back, after forming in
    two lines, plumed hats sympathetically in  hand, to let the hearse and the
    carriages pass between.

    "Mighty fine-lookin' men," said Sheridan, brokenly.  "They all--all  liked
    him.  He was--"  His breath caught in a sob and choked him.  "He  was--a Grand
    Supreme Herald."

    Bibbs had divined aright.

    "Dust to dust," said the minister, under the gaunt trees; and at that
    Sheridan shook convulsively from head to foot.  All of the black group
    shivered, execpt Bibbs, when it came to "Dust to dust."  Bibbs stood  passive,
    for he was the only one of them who had known that thought as a  familiar
    neighbor; he had been close upon dust himself for a long, long  time, and even
    now he could prophesy no protracted separation between  himself and dust.  The
    machine-shop had brought him very close, and if he  had to go back it would
    probably bring him closer still; so close--as  Dr. Gurney predicted--that no
    one would be able to tell the difference  between dust and himself.  And
    Sheridan, if Bibbs read him truly, would  be all the more determined to "make
    a man" of him, now that there was a  man less in the family.  To Bibbs's
    knowledge, no one and nothing had  ever prevented his father from carrying
    through his plans, once he had  determined upon them; and Sheridan was
    incapable of believing that any  plan of his would not work out according to
    his calculations.  His nature  unfitted him to accept failure.  He had the
    gift of terrible persistence,  and with unflecked confidence that his way was
    the only way he would hold  to that way of "making a man" of Bibbs, who
    understood very well, in his  passive and impersonal fashion, that it was a
    way which might make, not a  man, but dust of him.  But he had no shudder for
    the thought.

    He had no shudder for that thought or for any other thought.  The truth  about
    Bibbs was in the poem which Edith had adopted: he had so thoroughly  formed
    the over-sensitive habit of hiding his feelings that no doubt he  had
    forgotten--by this time--where he had put some of them,  especially those
    which concerned himself.  But he had not hidden his  feelings about his father
    where they could not be found.  He was strange  to his father, but his father
    was not strange to him.  He knew that  Sheridan's plans were conceived in the
    stubborn belief that they would  bring about a good thing for Bibbs himself;
    and whatever the result was  to be, the son had no bitterness.  Far otherwise,
    for as he looked at the  big, woeful figure, shaking and tortured, an almost
    unbearable pity laid  hands upon Bibbs's throat.  Roscoe stood blinking, his
    lip quivering;  Edith wept audibly; Mrs. Sheridan leaned in half collapse
    against her  husband; but Bibbs knew that his father was the one who cared.

    It was over.  Men in overalls stepped forward with their shovels, and  Bibbs
    nodded quickly to Roscoe, making a slight gesture toward the line  of waiting
    carriages.  Roscoe understood--Bibbs would stay and see the  grave filled; the
    rest were to go.  The groups began to move away over  the turf; wheels creaked
    on the graveled drive; and one by one the  carriages filled and departed, the
    horses setting off at a walk.  Bibbs  gazed steadfastly at the workmen; he
    knew that his father kept looking  back as he went toward the carriage, and
    that was a thing he did not want  to see.  But after a little while there were
    no sounds of wheels or hoofs  on the gravel, and Bibbs, glancing up, saw that
    every one had gone.  A  coupe had been left for him, the driver dozing
    patiently.

    The workmen placed the flowers and wreaths upon the mound and about it,  and
    Bibbs altered the position of one or two of these, then stood looking
    thoughtfully at the grotesque brilliancy of that festal-seeming hillock
    beneath the darkening November sky.  "It's too bad!" he half whispered,  his
    lips forming the words--and his meaning was that it was too bad  that the
    strong brother had been the one to go.  For this was his last  thought before
    he walked to the coupe and saw Mary Vertrees standing, all  alone, on the
    other side of the drive.

    She had just emerged from a grove of leafless trees that grew on a slope
    where the tombs were many; and behind her rose a multitude of the  barbaric
    and classic shapes we so strangely strew about our graveyards:  urn-crowned
    columns and stone-draped obelisks, shop-carved angels and  shop-carved
    children poising on pillars and shafts, all lifting--in  unthought
    pathos--their blind stoniness toward the sky.  Against such a  background,
    Bibbs was not incongruous, with his figure, in black, so long  and slender,
    and his face so long and thin and white; nor was the  undertaker's coupe out
    of keeping, with the shabby driver dozing on the  box and the shaggy horses
    standing patiently in attitudes without hope  and without regret.  But for
    Mary Vertrees, here was a grotesque setting  --she was a vivid, living
    creature of a beautiful world.  And a  graveyard is not the place for people
    to look charming.

    She also looked startled and confused, but not more startled and confused
    than Bibbs.  In "Edith's" poem he had declared his intention of hiding  his
    heart "among the stars"; and in his boyhood one day he had  successfully
    hidden his body in the coal-pile.  He had been no comrade of  other boys or of
    girls, and his acquaintances of a recent period were  only a few
    fellow-invalids and the nurses at the Hood Sanitarium.  All  his life Bibbs
    had kept himself to himself--he was but a shy onlooker  in the world.
    Nevertheless, the startled gaze he bent upon the  unexpected lady before him
    had causes other than his shyness and her  unexpectedness.  For Mary Vertrees
    had been a shining figure in the  little world of late given to the view of
    this humble and elusive  outsider, and spectators sometimes find their hearts
    beating faster than  those of the actors in the spectacle.  Thus with Bibbs
    now.  He started  and stared; he lifted his hat with incredible awkwardness,
    his fingers  fumbling at his forehead before they found the brim.

    "Mr. Sheridan," said Mary, "I'm afraid you'll have to take me home with  you.
    I--"  She stopped, not lacking a momentary awkwardness of her own.

    "Why--why--yes," Bibbs stammered.  "I'll--I'll be de--Won't you  get in?"

    In that manner and in that place they exchanged their first words.  Then  Mary
    withour more ado got into the coupe, and Bibbs followed, closing the  door.

    "You're very kind," she said, somewhat breathlessly.  "I should have had  to
    walk, and it's beginning to get dark.  It's three miles, I think."

    "Yes," said Bibbs.  "It--it is beginning to get dark.  I--I noticed  that."

    "I ought to tell you--I--" Mary began, confusedly.  She bit her lip,  sat
    silent a moment, then spoke with composure.  "It must seem odd, my--"

    "No, no!" Bibbs protested, earnestly.  "Not in the--in the least."

    "It does, though," said Mary.  "I had not intended to come to the  cemetery,
    Mr. Sheridan, but one of the men in charge at the house came  and whispered to
    me that 'the family wished me to'--I think your sister  sent him.  So I came.
    But when we reached here I--oh, I felt that  perhaps I--"

    Bibbs nodded gravely.  "Yes, yes," he murmured.

    "I got out on the opposite side of the carriage," she continued.  "I mean
    opposite from--from where all of you were.  And I wandered off over in  the
    other direction; and I didn't realize how little time--it takes.   From where
    I was I couldn't see the carriages leaving--at least I  didn't notice them.
    So when I got back, just now, you were the only one  here.  I didn't know the
    other people in the carriage I came in, and of  course they didn't think to
    wait for me.  That's why--"

    "Yes," said Bibbs, "I--"  And that seemed all he had to say just then.

    Mary looked out through the dusty window.  "I think we'd better be going
    home, if you please," she said.

    "Yes," Bibbs agreed, not moving.  "It will be dark before we get there."

    She gave him a quick little glance.  "I think you must be very tired, Mr.
    Sheridan; and I know you have reason to be," she said, gently.  "If  you'll
    let me, I'll--"  And without explaining her purpose she opened  the door on
    her side of the coupe and leaned out.

    Bibbs started in blank perplexity, not knowing what she meant to do.

    "Driver!" she called, in her clear voice, loudly.  "Driver! We'd like to
    start, please!  Driver!  Stop at the house just north of Mr. Sheridan's,
    please."  The wheels began to move, and she leaned back beside Bibbs once
    more.  "I noticed that he was asleep when we got in," she said.   "I  suppose
    they have a great deal of night work."

    Bibbs drew a long breath and waited till he could command his voice.   "I've
    never been able to apologize quickly," he said, with his accustomed  slowness,
    "because if I try to I stammer.  My brother Roscoe whipped me  once, when we
    were boys, for stepping on his slate-pencil.  It took me so  long to tell him
    it was an accident, he finished before I did."

    Mary Vertrees had never heard anything quite like the drawling, gentle  voice
    or the odd implication that his not noticing the motionless state  of their
    vehicle was an "accident."  She had formed a casual impression  of him, not
    without sympathy, but at once she discovered that he was  unlike any of her
    cursory and vague imaginings of him.  And suddenly she  saw a picture he had
    not intended to paint for sympathy: a sturdy boy  hammering a smaller, sickly
    boy, and the sickly boy unresentful.  Not  that picture alone; others flashed
    before her.  Instantaneously she had a  glimpse of Bibbs's life and into his
    life.   She had a queer feeling, new  to her experience, of knowing him
    instantly.  It startled her a litttle;  and then, with some surprise, she
    realized that she was glad he had sat so  long, after getting into the coupe,
    before he noticed that it had not  started.  What she did not realize,
    however, was that she had made no  response to his apology, and they passed
    out of the cemetery gates,  neither having spoken again.

    Bibbs was so content with the silence he did not know that it was  silence.
    The dusk, gathering in their small inclosure, was filled with a  rich presence
    for him; and presently it was so dark that neither of the  two could see the
    other, nor did even their garments touch.  But neither  had any sense of being
    alone.  The wheels creaked steadily, rumbling  presently on paved streeets;
    there were the sounds, as from a distance, of  the plod-plod of the horses;
    and sometimes the driver became audible,  coughing asthmatically, or saying,
    "You, JOE!" with a spiritless flap of  the whip upon an unresponsive back.
    Oblongs of light from the lamps at  street-corners came swimming into the
    interior of the coupe and, thinning  rapidly to lances, passed utterly,
    leaving greater darkness.  And yet  neither of these two last attendants at
    Jim Sheridan's funeral broke the  silence.

    It was Mary who preceived the strangeness of it--too late.  Abruptly  she
    realized that for an indefinite interval she had been thinking of her
    companion and not talking to him.  "Mr. Sheridan," she began, not knowing
    what she was going to say, but impelled to say anything, as she realized  the
    queerness of this drive--"Mr. Sheridan, I--"

    The coupe stopped.  "You, JOE!" said the driver, reproachfully, and  climbed
    down and opened the door.

    "What's the trouble?" Bibbs inquired.

    "Lady said stop at the first house north of Mr. Sheridan's, sir."

    Mary was incredulous; she felt that it couldn't be true and that it  mustn't
    be true that they had driven all the way without speaking.

    "What?" Bibbs demanded.

    "We're there, sir," said the driver, sympathetically.  "Next house north  of
    Mr. Sheridan's."

    Bibbs descended to the curb.  "Why, yes," he said.  "Yes, you seem to be
    right."  And while he stood staring at the dimly illuminated front  windows of
    Mr. Vertrees's house Mary got out, unassisted.

    "Let me help you," said Bibbs, stepping toward her mechanically; and she  was
    several feet from the coupe when he spoke.

    "Oh no," she murmured.  "I think I can--"  She meant that she could get  out
    of the coupe without help, but, perceiving that she had already  accomplished
    this feat, she decided not to complete the sentence.

    "You, JOE!" cried the driver, angrily, climbing to his box.  And he  rumbled
    away at his team's best pace--a snail's.

    "Thank you for bringing me home, Mr. Sheridan," said Mary, stiffly.  She  did
    not offer her hand.  "Good night."

    "Good night," Bibbs said in response, and, turning with her, walked  beside
    her to the door.  Mary made that a short walk; she almost ran.   Realization
    of the queerness of their drive was growing upon her,  beginning to shock her;
    she stepped aside from the light that fell  through the glass panels of the
    door and withheld her hand as it touched  the old-fashioned bell-handle.

    "I'm quite safe, thank you," she said, with a little emphasis.  "Good night."

    "Good night," said Bibbs, and went obediently.  When he reached the  street he
    looked back, but she had vanished within the house.

    Moving slowly away, he caromed against two people who were turning out  from
    the pavement to cross the street.  They were Roscoe and his wife.

    "Where are your eyes, Bibbs?" demanded Roscoe.  "Sleep-walking, as usual?"

    But Sibyl took the wanderer by the arm.  "Come over to our house for a  little
    while, Bibbs," she urged.  "I want to--"

    "No, I'd better--"

    "Yes.  I want you to.  Your father's gone to bed, and they're all quiet  over
    there--all worn out.  Just come for a minute."

    He yielded, and when they were in the house she repeated herself with  real
    feeling: "'All worn out!'  Well, if anybody is, YOU are, Bibbs!  And  I don't
    wonder; you've done every bit of the work of it.  You mustn't get  down sick
    again.  I'm going to make you take a little brandy."

    He let her have her own way, following her into the dining-room, and was
    grateful when she brought him a tiny glass filled from one of the  decanters
    on the sideboard.  Roscoe gloomily poured for himself a much  heavier libation
    in a larger glass; and the two men sat, while Sibyl  leaned against the
    sideboard, reviewing the episodes of the day and  recalling the names of the
    donors of flowers and wreaths.  She pressed  Bibbs to remain longer when he
    rose to go, and then, as he persisted, she  went with him to the front door.
    He opened it, and she said:

    "Bibbs, you were coming out of the Vertreeses' house when we met you.   How
    did you happen to be there?"

    "I had only been to the door," he said.  "Good night, Sibyl."

    "Wait," she insisted.  "We saw you coming out."

    "I wasn't," he explained, moving to depart.  "I'd just brought Miss  Vertrees
    home."

    "What?" she cried.

    "Yes," he said, and stepped out upon the porch, "that was it.  Good  night,
    Sibyl."

    "Wait!" she said, following him across the threshold.  "How did that  happen?
    I thought you were going to wait while those men filled the-- the--"  She
    paused, but moved nearer him insistently.

    "I did wait.  Miss Vertrees was there," he said, reluctantly.  "She had
    walked away for a while and didn't notice that the carriages were  leaving.
    When she came back the coupe waiting for me was the only one left."

    She regarded him with dilating eyes.  She spoke with a slow  breathlessness.
    "And she drove home from Jim's funeral--with you!"

    Without warning she burst into laughter, clapped her hand ineffectually  over
    her mouth, and ran back uproariously into the house, hurling the  door shut
    behind her.

    Bibbs went home pondering.  He did not understand why Sibyl had laughed.   The
    laughter itself had been spontaneous and beyond suspicion, but it  seemed to
    him that she had only affected to effort to suppress it and  that she wished
    it to be significant.  Significant of what?  And why had  she wished to
    impress upon him the fact of her overwhelming amusement?   He found no answer,
    but she had succeeded in disturbing him, and he  wished that he had not
    encountered her.

    At home, uncles, aunts, and cousins from out of town were wandering about  the
    house, several mournfully admiring the "Bay of Naples," and others  occupied
    with the Moor and the plumbing, while they waited for trains.   Edith and her
    mother had retired to some upper fastness, but Bibbs  interviewed Jackson and
    had the various groups of relatives summoned to  the dining-room for food.
    One great-uncle, old Gideon Sheridan from  Boonville, could not be found, and
    Bibbs went in search of him.  He  ransacked the house, discovering the missing
    antique at last by  accident.  Passing his father's closed door on tiptoe,
    Bibbs heard a  murmurous sound, and paused to listen.  The sound proved to be
    a quavering  and rickety voice, monotonously bleating:

    "The Lo-ord givuth and the Lo-ord takuth away!  We got to remember that;  we
    got to remember that!  I'm a-gittin' along, James; I'm a-gittin'  along, and
    I've seen a-many of 'em go--two daughters and a son the Lord  give me, and He
    has taken all away.  For the Lo-ord givuth and the Lo-ord  takuth away!
    Remember the words of Bildad the Shuhite, James.  Bildad  the Shuhite says,
    'He shall have neither son nor nephew among his people,  nor any remaining in
    his dwellings.'  Bildad the Shuhite--"

    Bibbs opened the door softly.  His father was lying upon the bed, in his
    underclothes, face downward, and Uncle Gideon sat near by, swinging  backward
    and forward in a rocking-chair, stroking his long white beard  and gazing at
    the ceiling as he talked.  Bibbs beckoned him urgently, but  Uncle Gideon paid
    no attention.

    "Bibdad the Shuhite spake and his says, 'If thy children have sinned  against
    Him and He have cast them away--"

    There was a muffled explosion beneath the floor, and the windows  rattled.
    The figure lying face downward on the bed did not move, but  Uncle Gideon
    leaped from his chair.  "My God!" he cried.  "What's that?"

    There came a second explosion, and Uncle Gideon ran out into the hall.   Bibbs
    went to the head of the great staircase, and, looking down,  discovered the
    source of the distubance.  Gideon's grandson, a boy of  fourteen, had brought
    his camera to the funeral and was taking  "flash-lights" of the Moor.  Uncle
    Gideon, reassured by Bibbs's  explanation, would have returned to finish his
    quotation from Bildad the  Shuhite, but Bibbs detained him, and after a little
    argument persuaded  him to descend to the dining-room whither Bibbs followed,
    after closing  the door of his father's room.

    He kept his eye on Gideon after dinner, diplomatically preventing several
    attempts on the part of that comforter to reascend the stairs; and it was  a
    relief to Bibbs when George announced that an automobile was waiting to
    convey the ancient man and his grandson to their train.  They were the  last
    to leave, and when they had gone Bibbs went sighing to his own room.

    He stretched himself wearily upon the bed, but presently rose, went to  the
    window, and looked for a long time at the darkened house where Mary  Vertrees
    lived.  Then he open his trunk, took therefrom a small note-book  half filled
    with fragmentary scribblings, and began to write:

         Laughter after a funeral.  In this reaction people will laugh at
    anything and at nothing.  The band plays a dirge on the way to the  cemetery,
    but when it turns back, and the mourning carriages are out of  hearing, it
    strikes up, "Darktown is Out To-night."  That is natural-- but there are women
    whose laughter is like the whirring of whips.  Why is  it that certain kinds
    of laughter seem to spoil something hidden away  from the laughers?  If they
    do not know of it, and have never seen it,  how can their laughter hurt it?
    Yet it does.   Beauty is not out of place among grave-stones.  It is not
    out of  place anywhere.  But a woman who has been betrothed to a man would not
    look beautiful at his funeral.  A woman might look beautiful, though, at  the
    funeral of a man whom she had known and liked.  And in that case,  too, she
    would probably not want to talk if she drove home from the  cemetery with his
    brother: nor would she want the brother to talk.   Silence is usually either
    stupid or timid.  But for a man who stammers if  he tries to talk fast, and
    drawls so slowly, when he doesn't stammer,  that nobody has time to listen to
    him, silence is advisable.   Nevertheless, too much silence is open to
    suspicion.  It may be  reticence, or it may be a vacuum.  It may be dignity,
    or it may be false  teeth.    Sometimes an imperceptible odor will become
    perceptible in a  small inclosure, such as a closed carriage.  The ghost of
    gasoline rising  from a lady's glove might be sweeter to the man riding beside
    her than  all the scents of Arcady in spring.  It depends on the lady--but
    there  ARE!    Three miles may be three hundred miles, or it may be three
    feet.   When it is three feet you have not time to say a great deal before you
    reach the end of it.  Still, it may be that one should begin to speak.     No one
    could help wishing to stay in a world that holds some of  the people that are
    in this world.  There are some so wonderful you do  not understand how the
    dead COULD die.  How could they let themselves?   A falling building does
    not care who falls with it.  It does not  choose who shall be upon its roof
    and who shall not.  Silence CAN be golden?  Yes.  But perhaps if a woman
    of the world  should find herself by accident sitting beside a man for the
    length of  time it must necessarily take two slow old horses to jog three
    miles, she  might expect that man to say something of some sort!  Even if she
    thought  him a feeble hypochondriac, even if she had heard from others that he
    was  a disappointment to his own people, even if she had seen for herself that
    he was a useless and irritating encumbrance everywhere, she might expect  him
    at least to speak--she might expect him to open his mouth and try  to make
    sounds, if he only barked.  If he did not even try, but sat every  step of the
    way as dumb as a frozen fish, she might THINK him a frozen  fish.  And she
    might be right.  She might be right if she thought him  about as pleasant a
    companion as--as Bildad the Shuhite!

    Bibbs closed his note-book, replacing it in his trunk.  Then, after a  period
    of melancholy contemplation, he undressed, put on a dressing-gown  and
    slippers, and went softly out into the hall--to his father's door.   Upon the
    floor was a tray which Bibbs had sent George, earlier in the  evening, to
    place upon a table in Sheridan's room--but the food was  untouched.  Bibbs
    stood listening outside the door for several minutes.   There came no sound
    from within, and he went back to his own room and to bed.

    In the morning he woke to a state of being hitherto unknown in his
    experience.  Sometimes in the process of waking there is a little pause
    --sleep has gone, but coherent thought has not begun.  It is a curious
    half-void, a glimpse of aphasia; and although the person experiencing it  may
    not know for that instant his own name or age or sex, he may be  acutely
    conscious of depression or elation.  It is the moment, as we say,  before we
    "remember"; and for the first time in Bibbs's life it came to  him bringing a
    vague happiness.  He woke to a sense of new riches; he had  the feeling of a
    boy waking to a birthday.  But when the next moment  brought him his memory,
    he found nothing that could explain his  exhilaration.  On the contrary, under
    the circumstances it seemed  grotesquely unwarranted.  However, it was a brief
    visitation and was gone  before he had finished dressing.  It left a little
    trail, the pleased  recollection of it and the puzzle of it, which remained
    unsolved.  And, in  fact, waking happily in the morning is not usually the
    result of a drive  home from a funeral.  No wonder the sequence evaded Bibbs
    Sheridan!

    His father had gone when he came down-stairs.  "Went on down to 's  office,
    jes' same," Jackson informed him.  "Came sat breakfas'-table, all  by 'mself;
    eat nothin'.  George bring nice breakfas', but he di'n' eat a  thing.  Yessuh,
    went on down-town, jes' same he yoosta do.  Yessuh, I reckon putty much
    ev'y-thing goin' go on same as it yoosta do."

    It struck Bibbs that Jackson was right.  The day passed as other days had
    passed.  Mrs. Sheridan and Edith were in black, and Mrs. Sheridan cried a
    little, now and then, but no other external difference was to be seen.   Edith
    was quiet, but not noticeably depressed, and at lunch proved  herself able to
    argue with her mother upon the propriety of receiving  calls in the earliest
    stages of "mourning."  Lunch was as usual--for  Jim and his father had always
    lunched down-town--and the afternoon was  as usual.  Bibbs went for his drive,
    and his mother went with him, as she  sometimes did when the weather was
    pleasant.  Altogether, the usualness  of things was rather startling to Bibbs.

    During the drive Mrs. Sheridan talked fragmentarily of Jim's childhood.   "But
    you wouldn't remember about that," she said, after narrating an  episode.
    "You were too little.  He was always a good boy, just like  that.  And he'd
    save whatever papa gave him, and put it in the bank.  I  reckon it 'll just
    about kill your father to put somebody in his place as  president of the
    Realty Company, Bibbs.  I know he can't move Roscoe  over; he told me last
    week he'd already put as much on Roscoe as any one  man could handle and not
    go crazy.  Oh, it's a pity--"  She stopped to  wipe her eyes.  "It's a pity
    you didn't run more with Jim, Bibbs, and  kind o' pick up his ways.  Think
    what it'd meant to papa now! You never  did run with either Roscoe or Jim any,
    even before you got sick.  Of  course, you were younger; but it always DID
    seem queer--and you three  bein' brothers like that.  I don't believe I ever
    saw you and Jim sit  down together for a good talk in my life."

    "Mother, I've been away so long," Bibbs returned, gently. "And since I  came
    home I--"

    "Oh, I ain't reproachin' you, Bibbs," she said.  "Jim ain't been home  much of
    an evening since you got back--what with his work and callin'  and goin' to
    the theater and places, and often not even at the house for  dinner.  Right
    the evening before he got hurt he had his dinner at some  miser'ble rest'rant
    down by the Pump Works, he was so set on overseein'  the night work and
    gettin' everything finished up right to the minute he  told papa he would.  I
    reckon you might 'a' put in more time with Jim if  there'd been more
    opportunity, Bibbs.  I expect you feel almost as if you  scarcely really knew
    him right well."

    "I suppose I really didn't, mother.  He was busy, you see, and I hadn't  much
    to say about the things that interested him, because I don't know  much about
    them."

    "It's a pity! Oh, it's a pity!" she moaned.  "And you'll have to learn to
    know about 'em NOW, Bibbs!  I haven't said much to you, because I felt it  was
    all between your father and you, but I honestly do believe it will  just kill
    him if he has to have any more trouble on top of all this!  You  mustn't LET
    him, Bibbs--you mustn't!  You don't know how he's grieved  over you, and now
    he can't stand any more--he just can't!  Whatever he  says for you to do, you
    DO it, Bibbs, you DO it!  I want you to promise  me you will."

    "I would if I could," he said, sorrowfully.

    "No, no!  Why can't you?" she cried, clutching his arm.  "He wants you to  go
    back to the machine-shop and--"

    "And--'like it!" said Bibbs.

    "Yes, that's it--to go in a cheerful spirit.  Dr. Gurney said it  wouldn't
    hurt you if you went in a cheerful spirit--the doctor said  that himself,
    Bibbs.  So why can't you do it?  Can't you do that much for  your father?  You
    ought to think what he's done for YOU.  You got a  beautiful house to live in;
    you got automobiles to ride in; you got fur  coats and warm clothes; you been
    taken care of all your life.  And you  don't KNOW how he worked for the money
    to give all these things to you!   You don't DREAM what he had to go through
    and what he risked when we were  startin' out in life; and you never WILL
    know!  And now this blow has  fallen on him out of a clear sky, and you make
    it out to be a hardship to  do like he wants you to!  And all on earth he asks
    is for you to go back  to the work in a cheerful spirit, so it won't hurt you!
    That's all he  asks.  Look, Bibbs, we're gettin' back near home, but before we
    get there  I want you to promise me that you'll do what he asks you to.
    Promise  me!"

    In her earnestness she cleared away her black veil that she might see  him
    better, and it blew out on the smoky wind.  He readjusted it for her  before
    he spoke.

    "I'll go back in as cheerful a spirit as I can, mother," he said.

    "There!" she exclaimed, satisfied.  "That's a good boy!  That's all I  wanted
    you to say."

    "Don't give me any credit," he said, ruefully.  "There isn't anything  else
    for me to do."

    "Now, don't begin talkin' THAT way!"

    "No, no," he soothed her.  "We'll have to begin to make the spirit a  cheerful
    one.  We may--"  They were turning into their own driveway as  he spoke, and
    he glanced at the old house next door.  Mary Vertrees was  visible in the
    twilight, standing upon the front steps, bareheaded, the  door open behind
    her.  She bowed gravely.

    "'We may'--what?" asked Mrs. Sheridan, with a slight impatience.

    "What is it, mother?"

    "You said, 'We may,' and didn't finish what you were sayin'."

    "Did I?" said Bibbs, blankly.  "Well, what WERE we saying?"

    "Of all the queer boys!" she cried.  "You always were.  Always!  You  haven't
    forgot what you just promised me, have you?"

    "No," he answered, as the car stopped.  "No, the spirit will be as  cheerful
    as the flesh will let it, mother.  It won't do to behave like--"

    His voice was low, and in her movement to descend from the car she failed  to
    here his final words.

    "Behave like who, Bibbs?"

    "Nothing."

    But she was fretful in her grief.  "You said it wouldn't do to behave  like
    SOMEBODY.  Behave like WHO?"

    "It was just nonsense," he explained, turning to go in.  "An obscure  person I
    don't think much of lately."

    "Behave like WHO?" she repeated, and upon his yielding to her petulant
    insistence, she made up her mind that the only thing to do was to tell  Dr.
    Gurney about it.

    "Like Bildad the Shuhite!" was what Bibbs said.

    The outward usualness of things continued after dinner.  It was  Sheridan's
    custom to read the evening paper beside the fire in the  library, while his
    wife, sitting near by, either sewed (from old habit)  or allowed herself to be
    repeatedly baffled by one of the simpler forms  of solitaire.  To-night she
    did neither, but sat in her customary chair,  gazing at the fire, while
    Sheridan let the unfolded paper rest upon his  lap, though now and then he
    lifted it, as if to read, and let it fall  back upon his knees again.  Bibbs
    came in noiselessly and sat in a  corner, doing nothing; and from a
    "reception-room" across the hall an  indistinct vocal murmur became just
    audible at intervals.  Once, when  this murmur grew louder, under stress of
    some irrepressible merriment,  Edith's voice could be heard--"Bobby, aren't
    you awful!" and Sheridan  glanced across at his wife appealingly.

    She rose at once and went into the "reception-room"; there was a flurry  of
    whispering, and the sound of tiptoeing in the hall--Edith and her  suitor
    changing quarters to a more distant room.  Mrs. Sheridan returned  to her
    chair in the library.

    "They won't bother you any more, papa," she said, in a comforting voice.
    "She told me at lunch he'd 'phoned he wanted to come up this evening, and  I
    said I thought he'd better wait a few days, but she said she'd already  told
    him he could."  She paused, then added, rather guiltily: "I got kind  of a
    notion maybe Roscoe don't like him as much as he used to.  Maybe-- maybe you
    better ask Roscoe, papa."  And as Sheridan nodded solemnly, she  concluded, in
    haste: "Don't say I said to.  I might be wrong about it,  anyway."

    He nodded again, and they sat for some time in a silence which Mrs.  Sheridan
    broke with a little sniff, having fallen into a reverie that  brought tears.
    "That Miss Vertrees was a good girl," she said.  "SHE was  all right."

    Her husband evidently had no difficulty in following her train of  thought,
    for he nodded once more, affirmatively.

    "Did you--How did you fix it about the--the Realty Company?" she  faltered.
    "Did you--

    He rose heavily, helping himself to his feet by the arms of his chair.   "I
    fixed it," he said, in a husky voice.  "I moved Cantwell up, and put  Johnston
    in Cantwell's place, and split up Johnston's work among the four  men with
    salaries high enough to take it."  He went to her, put his hand  upon her
    shoulder, and drew a long, audible, tremulous breath.  "It's my  bedtime,
    mamma; I'm goin' up."  He dropped the hand from her shoulder and  moved slowly
    away, but when he reached the door he stopped and spoke  again, without
    turning to look at her.  "The Realty Company 'll go right  on just the same,"
    he said.  "It's like--it's like sand, mamma.  It  puts me in mind of chuldern
    playin' in a sand-pile.  One of 'em sticks  his finger in the sand and makes a
    hole, and another of 'em 'll pat the  place with his hand, and all the little
    grains of sand run in and fill it  up and settle against one another; and
    then, right away it's flat on top  again, and you can't tell there ever was a
    hole there.  The Realty Company  'll go on all right, mamma.  There ain't
    anything anywhere, I reckon,  that wouldn't go right on--just the same."

    And he passed out slowly into the hall; then they heard his heavy tread  upon
    the stairs.

    Mrs. Sheridan, rising to follow him, turned a piteous face to her son.   "It's
    so forlong," she said, chokingly.  "That's the first time he spoke  since he
    came in the house this evening.  I know it must 'a' hurt him to  hear Edith
    laughin' with that Lamhorn.  She'd oughtn't to let him come,  right the very
    first evening this way; she'd oughtn't to done it!  She  just seems to lose
    her head over him, and it scares me.  You heard what  Sibyl said the other
    day, and--and you heard what--what--"

    "What Edith said to Sibyl?"  Bibbs finished the sentence for her.

    "We CAN'T have any trouble o' THAT kind!" she wailed.  "Oh, it looks as if
    movin' up to this New House had brought us awful bad luck!  It scares  me!"
    She put both her hands over her face.  "Oh, Bibbs, Bibbs! if you  only wasn't
    so QUEER!  If you could only been a kind of dependable son!   I don't know
    what we're all comin' to!"  And, weeping, she followed her  husband.

    Bibbs gazed for a while at the fire; then he rose abruptly, like a man  who
    has come to a decision, and briskly sought the room--it was called  "the
    smoking-room"--where Edith sat with Mr. Lamhorn.  They looked up  in no
    welcoming manner, at Bibbs's entrance, and moved their chairs to a  less
    conspicuous adjacency.

    "Good evening," said Bibbs, pleasantly; and he seated himself in a  leather
    easy-chair near them.

    "What is it?" asked Edith, plainly astonished.

    "Nothing," he returned, smiling.

    She frowned.  "Did you want something?" she asked.

    "Nothing in the world.  Father and mother have gone up-stairs; I sha'n't  be
    going up for several hours, and there didn't seem to be anybody left  for me
    to chat with except you and Mr. Lamhorn."

    "'CHAT with'!" she echoed, incredulously.

    "I can talk about almost anything," said Bibbs with an air of genial
    politeness.  "It doesn't matter to ME.  I don't know much about business  --if
    that's what you happened to be talking about.  But you aren't in  business,
    are you, Mr. Lamhorn.

    "Not now," returned Lamhorn, shortly.

    "I'm not, either," said Bibbs.  "It was getting cloudier than usual, I
    noticed, just before dark, and there was wind from the southwest.  Rain
    to-morrow, I shouldn't be surprised."

    He seemed to feel that he had begun a conversation the support of which  had
    now become the pleasurable duty of other parties; and he sat  expectantly,
    looking first at his sister, then at Lamhorn, as if implying  that it was
    their turn to speak.  Edith returned his gaze with a mixture  of astonishment
    and increasing anger, while Mr. Lamhorn was obviously  disturbed, though Bibbs
    had been as considerate as possible in presenting  the weather as a topic.
    Bibbs had perceived that Lamhorn had nothing in  his mind at any time except
    "personalities"--he could talk about people  and he could make love.  Bibbs,
    wishing to be courteous, offered the weather.

    Lamhorn refused it, and concluded from Bibbs's luxurious attitude in the
    leather chair that this half-crazy brother was a permanent fixture for  the
    rest of the evening.  There was not reason to hope that he would  move, and
    Lamhorn found himself in danger of looking silly.

    "I was just going," he said, rising.

    "Oh NO!" Edith cried, sharply.

    "Yes.  Good night!  I think I--"

    "Too bad," said Bibbs, genially, walking to the door with the visitor,  while
    Edith stood staring as the two disappeared in the hall.  She heard  Bibbs
    offering to "help" Lamhorn with his overcoat and the latter rather  curtly
    declining assistance, these episodes of departure being followed  by the
    closing of the outer door.  She ran into the hall.

    "What's the matter with you?" she cried, furiously.  "What do you MEAN?   How
    did you dare come in there when you knew--"

    Her voice broke; she made a gesture of rage and despair, and ran up the
    stairs, sobbing.  She fled to her mother's room, and when Bibbs came up,  a
    few minutes later, Mrs. Sheridan met him at his door.

    "Oh, Bibbs," she said, shaking her head woefully, "you'd oughtn't to  distress
    your sister!  She says you drove that young man right out of the  house.
    You'd ought to been more considerate."

    Bibbs smiled faintly, noting that Edith's door was open, with Edith's  naive
    shadow motionless across its threshold.  "Yes," he said.  "He  doesn't appear
    to much of a 'man's man.'  He ran at just a glimpse of one."

    Edith's shadow moved; her voice came quavering: "You call yourself one?"

    "No, no," he answered.  "I said, 'just a glimpse of one.'  I didn't claim  --"
    But her door slammed angrily; and he turned to his mother.

    "There," he said, sighing.  "That's almost the first time in my life I  ever
    tried to be a man of action, mother, and I succeeded perfectly in  what I
    tried to do.  As a consequence I feel like a horse-thief!"

    "You hurt her feelin's," she groaned.  "You must 'a' gone at it too  rough,
    Bibbs."

    He looked upon her wanly.  "That's my trouble, mother," he murmured.   "I'm a
    plain, blunt fellow.  I have rough ways, and I'm a rough man."

    For once she perceived some meaning in his queerness.  "Hush your  nonsense!"
    she said, good-naturedly, the astral of a troubled smile  appearing.  "You go
    to bed."

    He kissed her and obeyed.

    Edith gave him a cold greeting the next morning at the breakfast-table.

    "You mustn't do that under a misapprehension," he warned her, when they  were
    alone in the dining-room.

    "Do what under a what?" she asked.

    "Speak to me.  I came into the smoking-room last night 'on purpose,'" he  told
    her, gravely.  "I have a prejudice against that young man."

    She laughed.  "I guess you think it means a great deal who you have
    prejudices against!"  In mockery she adopted the manner of one who  implores.
    "Bibbs, for pity's sake PROMISE me, DON'T use YOUR influence  with papa
    against him!"  And she laughed louder.

    "Listen," he said, with peculiar earnestness.  "I'll tell you now,
    because--because I've decided I'm one of the family."  And then, as if  the
    earnestness were too heavy for him to carry it further, he continued,  in his
    usual tone, "I'm drunk with power, Edith."

    "What do you want to tell me?" she damanded, brusquely.

    "Lamhorn made love to Sibyl," he said.

    Edith hooted. "SHE did to HIM!  And because you overheard that spat  between
    us the other day when I the same of accused her of it, and said  something
    like that to you afterward--"

    "No," he said, gravely.  "I KNOW."

    "How?"

    "I was there, one day a week ago, with Roscoe, and I heard Sibyl and
    Lamhorn--"

    Edith screamed with laughter.  "You were with ROSCOE--and you heard  Lamhorn
    making love to Sibyl!"

    "No.  I heard them quarreling."

    "You're funnier than ever, Bibbs!" she cried.  "You say he made love to  her
    because you heard them quarreling!"

    "That's it.  If you want to know what's 'between' people, you can--by  the way
    they quarrel."

    "You'll kill me, Bibbs!  What were they quarreling about?"

    "Nothing.  That's how I knew.  People who quarrel over nothing!--it's  always
    certain--"

    Edith stopped laughing abruptly, but continued her mockery.  "You ought  to
    know.  You've had so much experience, yourself!"

    "I haven't any, Edith," he said.  "My life has been about as exciting as  an
    incubator chicken's.  But I look out through the glass at things."

    "Well, then," she said, "if you look out through the glass you must know  what
    effect such stuff would have upon ME!" She rose, visibly agitated.   "What if
    it WAS true?" she dmanded, bitterly.  "What if it was true a  hundred times
    over?  You sit there with your silly face half ready to  giggle and half ready
    to sniffle, and tell me stories like that, about  Sibyl picking on Bobby
    Lamhorn and worrying him to death, and you think  it matters to ME?  What if I
    already KNEW all about their 'quarreling'?   What if I understood WHY she--"
    She broke off with a violent gesture, a  sweep of her arm extended at full
    length, as if she hurled something to  the ground.  "Do you think a girl that
    really cared for a man would pay  any attention to THAT?  Or to YOU, Bibbs
    Sheridan!"

    He looked at her steadily, and his gaze was as keen as it was steady.   She
    met it with unwavering pride.  Finally he nodded slowly, as if she  had spoken
    and he meant to agree with what she said.

    "Ah, yes," he said.  "I won't come into the smoking-room again.  I'm  sorry,
    Edith.  Nobody can make you see anything now.  You'll never see  until you see
    for yourself.  The rest of us will do better to keep out of  it--especially
    me!"

    "That's sensible," she responded, curtly.  "You're most surprising of all
    when you're sensible, Bibbs."

    "Yes," he sighed.  "I'm a dull dog.  Shake hands and forgive me, Edith."

    Thawing so far as to smile, she underwent this brief ceremony, and George
    appeared, summoning Bibbs to the library; Dr. Gurney was waiting there,  he
    announced.  And Bibbs gave his sister a shy but friendly touch upon  the
    shoulder as a complement to the handshaking, and left her.

    Dr. Gurney was sitting by the log fire, alone in the room, and he merely
    glanced over his shoulder when his patient came in.  He was not over  fifty,
    in spite of Sheridan's habitual "ole Doc Gurney."  He was gray,  however,
    almost as thin as Bibbs, and nearly always he looked drowsy.

    "Your father telephoned me yesterday afternoon, Bibbs," he said, not  rising.
    "Wants me to 'look you over' again.  Come around here in front  of me--between
    me and the fire.  I want to see if I can see through you."

    "You mean you're too sleepy to move," returned Bibbs, complying.  "I  think
    you'll notice that I'm getting worse."

    "Taken on about twelve pounds," said Gurney.  "Thirteen, maybe."

    "Twelve."

    "Well, it won't do."  The doctor rubbed his eyelids.  "You're so much  better
    I'll have to use some machinery on you before we can know just  where you are.
    You come down to my place this afternoon.  Walk down-- all the way.  I suppose
    you know why your father wants to know."

    Bibbs nodded.  "Machine-shop."

    "Still hate it?"

    Bibbs nodded again.

    "Don't blame you!" the doctor grunted.  "Yes, I expect it 'll make a lump  in
    your gizzard again. Well, what do you say?  Shall I tell him you've  got the
    old lump there yet?  You still want to write, do you?"

    "What's the use?" Bibbs said, smiling ruefully.  "My kind of writing!"

    "Yes," the doctor agreed.  "I suppose it you broke away and lived on  roots
    and berries until you began to 'attract the favorable attention of  editors'
    you might be able to hope for an income of four or five hundred  dollars a
    year by the time you're fifty."

    "That's about it," Bibbs murmured.

    "Of course I know what you want to do," said Gurney, drowsily.  "You  don't
    hate the machine-shop only; you hate the whole show--the noice  and jar and
    dirt, the scramble--the whole bloomin' craze to 'get on.'   You'd like to go
    somewhere in Algiers, or to Taormina, perhaps, and bask  on a balcony,
    smelling flowers and writing sonnets.  You'd grow fat on it  and have a
    delicate little life all to yourself.   Well, what do you  say?  I can lie
    like sixty, Bibbs!  Shall I tell your father he'll lose  another of his boys
    if you don't go to Sicily?"

    "I don't want to go to Sicily," said Bibbs.  "I want to stay right here."

    The doctor's drowsiness disappeared for a moment, and he gave his patient  a
    sharp glance.  "It's a risk," he said.  "I think we'll find you're so  much
    better he'll send you back to the shop pretty quick.  Something's  got hold of
    you lately; you're not quite so lackadaisical as you used to  be.  But I warn
    you: I think the shop will knock you just as it did  before, and perhaps even
    harder, Bibbs."

    He rose, shook himself, and rubbed his eyelids.  "Well, when we go over  you
    this afternoon what are we going to say about it?"

    "Tell him I'm ready," said Bibbs, looking at the floor.

    "Oh no," Gurney laughed.  "Not quite yet; but you may be almost.  We'll  see.
    Don't forget I said to walk down."

    And when the examination was concluded, that afternoon, the doctor  informed
    Bibbs that the result was much too satisfactory to be pleasing.   "Here's a
    new 'situation' for a one-act farce," he said, gloomily, to his  next patient
    when Bibbs had gone.  "Doctor tells a man he's well, and  that's his death
    sentence, likely.  Dam' funny world!"

    Bibbs decided to walk home, though Gurney had not instructed him upon  this
    point.  In fact, Gurney seemed to have no more instructions on any  point, so
    discouraging was the young man's improvement.  It was a dingy  afternoon, and
    the smoke was evident not only to Bibbs's sight, but to  his nostrils, though
    most of the pedestrians were so saturated with the  smell they could no longer
    detect it.  Nearly all of them walked  hurriedly, too intent upon their
    destinations to be more than half aware  of the wayside; they wore the
    expressions of people under a vague yet  constant strain.  They were all
    lightly powdered, inside and out, with  fine dust and grit from the hard-paved
    streets, and they were unaware of  that also.  They did not even notice that
    they saw the smoke, though the  thickened air was like a shrouding mist.  And
    when Bibbs passed the new  "Sheridan Apartments," now almost completed, he
    observed that the marble  of the vestibule was already streaky with soot, like
    his gloves, which  were new.

    That recalled to him the faint odor of gasolene in the coupe on the way  from
    his brother's funeral, and this incited a train of thought which  continued
    till he reached the vicinity of his home.  His route was by a  street parallel
    to that on which the New House fronted, and in his  preoccupation he walked a
    block farther than he intended, so that, having  crossed to his own street, he
    approached the New House from the north,  and as he came to the corner of Mr.
    Vertrees's lot Mr. Vertrees's  daughter emerged from the front door and walked
    thoughtfully down the  path to the old picket gate.  She was unconscious of
    the approach of the  pedestrian from the north, and did not see him until she
    had opened the  gate and he was almost beside her.  Then she looked up, and as
    she saw  him she started visibly.  And if this thing had happened to Robert
    Lamhorn, he would have had a thought far beyond the horizon of  faint-hearted
    Bibbs's thoughts.  Lamhorn, indeed, would have spoken his  thought.  He would
    have said:

    "You jumped because you were thinking of me!"

    Mary was the picture of a lady flustered.  She stood with one hand  closing
    the gate behind her, and she had turned to go in the direction  Bibbs was
    walking.  There appeared to be nothing for it but that they  should walk
    together, at least as far as the New House.  But Bibbs had  paused in his slow
    stride, and there elapsed an instant before either  spoke or moved--it was no
    longer than that, and yet it sufficed for  each to seem to say, by look and
    attitude, "Why, it's YOU!"

    Then they both spoke at once, each hurriedly pronouncing the other's name  as
    if about to deliver a message of importance.  Then both came to a stop
    simultaneously, but Bibbs made a heroic effort, and as they began to walk  on
    together he contrived to find his voice.

    "I--I--hate a frozen fish myself," he said.  "I think three miles was  too
    long for you to put up with one."

    "Good gracious!" she cried, turning to him a glowing face from which
    restraint and embarrassment had suddenly fled.  "Mr. Sheridan, you're  lovely
    to put it that way.  But it's always the girl's place to say it's  turning
    cooler!  I ought to have been the one to show that we didn't know  each other
    well enough not to say SOMETHING!  It was an imposition for me  to have made
    you bring me home, and after I went into the house I decided  I should have
    walked.  Besides, it wasn't three miles to the car-line.  I  never thought of
    it!"

    "No," said Bibbs, earnestly.  "I didn't, either.  I might have said  something
    if I'd thought of anything.  I'm talking now, though; I must  remember that,
    and not worry about it later.  I think I'm talking, though  it doesn't sound
    intelligent even to me.  I made up my mind that if I  ever met you again I'd
    turn on my voice and keep it going, no mater what  it said.  I--"

    She interrupted him with laughter, and Mary Vertrees's laugh was one  which
    Bibbs's father had declared, after the house-warming, "a cripple  would crawl
    five miles to hear."  And at the merry lilting of it Bibbs's  father's son
    took heart to forget some of his trepidation.  "I'll be any  kind of idiot,"
    he said, "if you'll laugh at me some more.  It won't be  difficult for me."

    She did; and Bibbs's cheeks showed a little actual color, which Mary
    perceived.  It recalled to her, by contrast, her careless and irritated
    description of him to her mother just after she had seen him for the  first
    time.  "Rather tragic and altogether impossible."  It seemed to her  now that
    she must have been blind.

    They had passed the New House without either of them showing--or
    possessing--any consciousness that it had been the destination of one  of
    them.

    "I'll keep on talking," Bibbs continued, cheerfully, "and you keep on
    laughing.  I'm amounting to something in the world this afternoon.  I'm
    making a noise, and that makes you make music.  Don't be bothered by my
    bleating out such things as that.  I'm really frightened, and that makes  me
    bleat anything.  I'm frightened about two things: I'm afraid of what  I'll
    think of myself later if I don't keep talking--talking now, I mean  --and I'm
    afraid of what I'll think of myself if I do.  And besides  these two things,
    I'm frightened, anyhow.  I don't remember talking as  much as this more than
    once or twice in my life.  I suppose it was always  in me to do it, though,
    the first time I met any one who didn't know me  well enough not to listen."

    "But you're not really talking to me," said Mary.  "You're just thinking
    aloud."

    "No," he returned, gravely.  "I'm not thinking at all; I'm only making  vocal
    sounds because I believe it's more mannerly.  I seem to be the  subject of
    what little meaning they possess, and I'd like to change it,  but I don't know
    how.  I haven't any experience in talking, and I don't  know how to manage
    it."

    "You needn't change the subject on my account, Mr. Sheridan," she said.   "Not
    even if you really talked about yourself."  She turned her face  toward him as
    she spoke, and Bibbs caught his breath; he was pathetically  amazed by the
    look she gave him.  It was a glowing look, warmly friendly  and understanding,
    and, what almost shocked him, it was an eagerly  interested look.  Bibbs was
    not accustomed to anything like that.

    "I--you--I--I'm--" he stammered, and the faint color in his cheeks  grew
    almost vivid.

    She was still looking at him, and she saw the strange radiance that came  into
    his face.  There was something about him, too, that explained how  "queer"
    many people might think him; but he did not seem "queer" to Mary  Vertrees; he
    seemed the most quaintly natural person she had ever met.

    He waited, and became coherent.  "YOU say something now," he said.  "I  don't
    even belong in the chorus, and here I am, trying to sing the funny  man's
    solo!  You--"

    "No," she interrupted.  "I'd rather play your accompaniment."

    "I'll stop and listen to it, then."

    "Perhaps--" she began, but after pausing thoughtfully she made a gesture  with
    her muff, indicating a large brick church which they were  approaching.  "Do
    you see that church, Mr. Sheridan?"

    "I suppose I could," he answered in simple truthfulness, looking at her.
    "But I don't want to.  Once, when I was ill, the nurse told me I'd better  say
    anything that was on my mind, and I got the habit.  The other reason  I don't
    want to see the church is that I have a feeling it's where you're  going, and
    where I'll be sent back."

    She shook her head in cheery negation.  "Not unless you want to be.   Would
    you like to come with me?"

    "Why--why--yes," he said.  "Anywhere!"  And again it was apparent  that he
    spoke in simple truthfulness.

    "Then come--if you care for organ music.  The organist is an old friend  of
    mine, and sometimes he plays for me.  He's a dear old man.  He had a  degree
    from Bonn, and was a professor afterward, but he gave up  everything for
    music.  That's he, waiting in the doorway.  He looks like  Beethoven, doesn't
    he?  I think he knows that, perhaps, and enjoys it a  little.  I hope so."

    "Yes," said Bibbs, as they reached the church steps.  "I think Beethoven
    would like it, too.  It must be pleasant to look like other people."

    "I haven't kept you?" Mary said to the organist.

    "No, no," he answered, heartily.  "I would not mind so only you should  shooer
    come!"

    "This is Mr. Sheridan, Dr. Kraft.  He has come to listen with me."

    The organist looked bluntly surprised.  "Iss that SO?" he exclaimed.   "Well,
    I am glad if you wish him, and if he can stant my liddle playink.   He iss
    musician himself, then, of course."

    "No," said Bibbs, as the three entered the church together.  "I--I  played
    the--I tried to play--"  Fortunately he checked himself; he had  been about to
    offer the information that he had failed to master the  jews'-harp in his
    boyhood.  "No, I'm not a musician," he contented  himself with saying.

    "What?" Dr. Kraft's surprise increased.  "Young man, you are fortunate!   I
    play for Miss Vertrees; she comes always alone.  You are the first.   You are
    the first one EVER!"

    They had reached the head of the central aisle, and as the organist  finished
    speaking Bibbs stopped short, turning to look at Mary Vertrees  in a dazed way
    that was not of her preceiving; for, though she stopped  as he did, her gaze
    followed the organist, who was walking away from  them toward the front of the
    church, shaking his white Beethovian mane  roguishly.

    "It's false pretenses on my part," Bibbs said.  "You mean to be kind to  the
    sick, but I'm not an invalid any more.  I'm so well I'm going back to  work in
    a few days.  I'd better leave before he begins to play, hadn't  I?"

    "No," said Mary, beginning to walk forward.  "Not unless you don't like  great
    music."

    He followed her to a seat about half-way up the aisle while Dr. Kraft
    ascended to the organ.  It was an enormous one, the procession of pipes
    ranging from long, starveling whistles to thundering fat guns; they  covered
    all the rear wall of the church, and the organist's figure,  reaching its high
    perch, looked like that of some Lilliputian magician  ludicrously daring the
    attempt to conrol a monster certain to overwhelm  him.

    "This afternoon some Handel!" he turned to shout.

    Mary nodded.  "Will you like that?" she asked Bibbs.

    "I don't know.  I never heard any except 'Largo.'  I don't know anything
    about music.  I don't even know how to pretend I do.  If I knew enough  to
    pretend, I would."

    "No," said Mary, looking at him and smiling faintly, "you wouldn't."

    She turned away as a great sound began to swim and tremble in the air;  the
    hugh empty space of the church filled with it, and the two people  listening
    filled with it; the universe seemed to fill and thrill with  it.  The two sat
    intensely still, the great sound all round about them,  while the church grew
    dusky, and only the organist's lamp made a tiny  star of light.  His white
    head moved from side to side beneath it  rhythmically, or lunged and recovered
    with the fierceness of a duelist  thrusting, but he was magnificently the
    master of his giant, and it sang  to his magic as he bade it.

    Bibbs was swept away upon that mighty singing.  Such a thing was wholly
    unknown to him; there had been no music in his meager life.  Unlike the  tale,
    it was the Princess Bedrulbudour who had brought him to the  enchanted cave,
    and that--for Bibbs--was what made its magic  dazing.  It seemed to him a
    long, long time since he had been walking  home drearily from Dr. Gurney's
    office; it seemed to him that he had  set out upon a happy journey since then,
    and that he had reached  another planet, where Mary Vertrees and he sat alone
    together listening  to a vast choiring of invisible soldiers and holy angels.
    There were  armies of voices about them singing praise and thanksgiving; and
    yet  they were alone.  It was incredible that the walls of the church were
    not the boundaries of the universe, to remain so for ever; incredible  that
    there was a smoky street just yonder, where housemaids were  bringing in
    evening papers from front steps and where children were  taking their last
    spins on roller-skates before being haled indoors for  dinner.

    He had a curious sense of communication with his new friend.  He knew it
    could not be so, and yet he felt as if all the time he spoke to her,  saying:
    "You hear this strain?  You hear that strain?  You know the dream  that these
    sounds bring to me?"  And it seemed to him as though she  answered
    continually: "I hear!  I hear that strain, and I hear the new  one that you
    are hearing now.  I know the dream that these sounds bring  to you.  Yes, yes,
    I hear it all!  We hear--together!"

    And though the church grew so dim that all was mysterious shadow except  the
    vague planes of the windows and the organist's light, with the white  head
    moving beneath it, Bibbs had no consciousness that the girl sitting  beside
    him had grown shadowy; he seemed to see her as plainly as ever in  the
    darkness, though he did not look at her.  And all the mighty chanting  of the
    organ's multitudinous voices that afternoon seemed to Bibbs to be  chorusing
    of her and interpreting her, singing her thoughts and singing  for him the
    world of humble gratitude that was in his heart because she  was so kind to
    him.  It all meant Mary.

    But when she asked him what it meant,on their homeward way, he was  silent.
    They had come a few paces from the church without speaking,  walking slowly.

    "I'll tell you what it meant to me," she said, as he did not immediately
    reply.  "Almost any music of Handel's always means one thing above all  others
    to me: courage!  That's it.  It makes cowardice of whining seem so
    infinitesimal--it makes MOST things in our hustling little lives seem
    infinitesimal."

    "Yes," he said.  "It seems odd, doesn't it, that people down-town are
    hurrying to trains and hanging to straps in trolley-cars, weltering every  way
    to get home and feed and sleep so they can get down-town to-morrow.   And yet
    there isn't anything down there worth getting to.  They're like  servants
    drudging to keep the house going, and believing the drudgery  itself is the
    great thing.  They make so much noise and fuss and dirt  they forget that the
    house was meant to live in.  The housework has to be  done, but the people who
    do it have been so overpaid that they're  confused and worship the housework.
    They're overpaid, and yet, poor  things! they haven't anything that a chicken
    can't have.  Of course, when  the world gets to paying its wages sensibly that
    will be different."

    "Do you mean 'communism'?" she asked, and she made their slow pace a  little
    slower--they had only three blocks to go.

    "Whatever the word is, I only mean that things don't look very sensible
    now--especially to a man that wants to keep out of 'em and can't!
    'Communism'?  Well, at least any 'decent sport' would say it's fair for  all
    the strong runners to start from the same mark and give the weak ones  a fair
    distance ahead, so that all can run something like even on the  stretch.  And
    wouldn't it be pleasant, really, if they could all cross  the winning-line
    together?  Who really enjoys beating anybody--if he  sees the beaten man's
    face?  The only way we can enjoy getting ahead of  other people nowadays is by
    forgetting what the other people feel.  And  that," he added, "is nothing of
    what the music meant to me.  You see, if  I keep talking about what it didn't
    mean I can keep from telling you what  it did mean."

    "Didn't it mean courage to you, too--a little?" she asked.  "Triumph  and
    praise were in it, and somehow those things mean courage to me."

    "Yes, they were all there," Bibbs said.  "I don't know the name of what  he
    played, but I shouldn't think it would matter much.  The man that  makes the
    music must leave it to you what it can mean to you, and the  name he puts to
    it can't make much difference--except to himself and  people very much like
    him, I suppose."

    "I suppose that's true, though I'd never thought of it like that."

    "I image music must make feelings and paint pictures in the minds of the
    people who hear it," Bibbs went on, musingly, "according to their own  natures
    as much as according to the music itself.  The musician might  compose
    something and play it, wanting you to think of the Holy Grail,  and some
    people who heard it would think of a prayer-meeting, and some  would think of
    how good they were themselves, and a boy might think of  himself at the head
    of a solemn procession, carrying a banner and riding  a white horse.  And
    then, if there were some jubilant passages in the  music, he'd think of a
    circus."

    They had reached her gate, and she set her hand upon it, but did not open  it.
    Bibbs felt that this was almost the kindest of her kindnesses--not  to be
    prompt in leaving him.

    "After all," she said, "you didn't tell me whether you liked it."

    "No.  I didn't need to."

    "No, that's true, and I didn't need to ask.  I knew.  But you said you  were
    trying to keep from telling me what it did mean."

    "I can't keep from telling it any longer," he said.  "The music meant to
    me--it meant the kindness of--of you."

    "Kindness?  How?"

    "You thought I was a sort of lonely tramp--and sick--"

    "No," she said, decidedly.  "I thought perhaps you'd like to hear Dr.  Kraft
    play.  And you did."

    "It's curious; sometimes it seemed to me that it was you who were playing."

    Mary laughed.  "I?  I strum!  Piano.  A little Chopin--Grieg-- Chaminade.  You
    wouldn't listen!"

    Bibbs drew a deep breath.  "I'm frightened again," he said, in an  unsteady
    voice.  "I'm afraid you'll think I'm pushing, but--"  He  paused, and the
    words sank to a murmur.

    "Oh, if you want ME to play for you!" she said.  "Yes, gladly.  It will  be
    merely absurd after what you heard this afternoon.  I play like a  hundred
    thousand other girls, and I like it.  I'm glad when any one's  willing to
    listen, and if you--"  She stopped, checked by a sudden  recollection, and
    laughed ruefully.  "But my piano won't be here after  to-night.  I--I'm
    sending it away to-morrow.  I'm afraid that if you'd  like me to play to you
    you'd have to come this evening."

    "You'll let me?" he cried.

    "Certainly, if you care to."

    "If I could play--" he said, wistfully, "if I could play like that old  man in
    the church I could thank you."

    "Ah, but you haven't heard me play.  I KNOW you liked this afternoon, but--"

    "Yes," said Bibbs.  "It was the greatest happiness I've ever known."

    It was too dark to see his face, but his voice held such plain honesty,  and
    he spoke with such complete unconsciousness of saying anything  especially
    significant, that she knew it was the truth.  For a moment she  was
    nonplussed, then she opened the gate and went in.  "You'll come after  dinner,
    then?"

    "Yes," he said, not moving.  "Would you mind if I stood here until time  to
    come in?"

    She had reached the steps, and at that she turned, offering him the  response
    of laughter and a gay gesture of her muff toward the lighted  windows of the
    New House, as though bidding him to run home to his dinner.

    That night, Bibbs sat writing in his note-book.

    Music can come into a blank life, and fill it.  Everything that is  beautiful
    is music, if you can listen.

    There is no gracefulness like that of a graceful woman at a grand piano.
    There is a swimming loveliness of line that seems to merge with the  running
    of the sound, and you seem, as you watch her, to see what you are  hearing and
    to hear what you are seeing.

    There are women who make you think of pine woods coming down to a  sparkling
    sea.  The air about such a woman is bracing, and when she is  near you, you
    feel strong and ambitious; you forget that the world  doesn't like you.  You
    think that perhaps you are a great fellow, after  all.  Then you come away and
    feel like a boy who has fallen in love with  his Sunday-school teacher.
    You'll be whipped for it--and ought to be.

    There are women who make you think of Diana, crowned with the moon.  But  they
    do not have the "Greek profile."  I do not believe Helen of Troy had  a "Greek
    profile"; they would not have fought about her if her nose had  been quite
    that long.  The Greek nose is not the adorable nose.  The  adorable nose is
    about an eighth of an inch shorter.

    Much of the music of Wagner, it appears, is not suitable to the piano.
    Wagner was a composer who could interpret into music such things as the
    primitive impulses of humanity--he could have made a machine-shop into  music.
    But not if he had to work in it.  Wagner was always dealing in  immensities--a
    machine-shop would have put a majestic lump in so grand  a gizzard as that.

    There is a mystery about pianos, it seems.  Sometimes they have to be  "sent
    away."  That is how some people speak of the penitentiary.  "Sent  away" is a
    euphuism for "sent to prison."  But pianos are not sent to  prison, and they
    are not sent to the tuner--the tuner is sent to them.   Why are pianos "sent
    away"--and where?

    Sometimes a glorious day shines into the most ordinary and useless life.
    Happiness and beauty come caroling out of the air into the gloomy house  of
    that life as if some stray angel just happened to perch on the  roof-tree,
    resting and singing.  And the night after such a day is  lustrous and splendid
    with the memory of it.  Music and beauty and  kindness--those are the three
    greatest things God can give us.  To  bring them all in one day to one who
    expected nothing--ah! the heart  that received them should be as humble as it
    is thankful.  But it is hard  to be humble when one is so rich with new
    memories.  It is impossible to be  humble after a day of glory.

    Yes--the adorable nose is more than an eighth of an inch shorter than  the
    Greek nose.  It is a full quarter of an inch shorter.

    There are women who will be kinder to a sick tramp than to a conquering  hero.
    But the sick tramp had better remember that's what he is.  Take  care, take
    care!  Humble's the word!

    That "mystery about pianos" which troubled Bibbs had been a mystery to  Mr.
    Vertrees, and it was being explained to him at about the time Bibbs  scribbled
    the reference to it in his notes.  Mary had gone up-stairs upon  Bibbs's
    departure at ten o'clock, and Mr. and Mrs. Vertrees sat until  after midnight
    in the library, talking.  And in all that time they found  not one cheerful
    topic, but became more depressed with everything and  with every phase of
    everything that they discussed--no extraordinary  state of affairs in a family
    which has always "held up its head," only to  arrive in the end at a point
    where all it can do is to look on helplessly  at the processes of its own
    financial dissolution.  For that was the  point which this despairing couple
    had reached--they could do nothing  except look on and talk about it.  They
    were only vaporing, and they knew  it.

    "She needn't to have done that about her piano," vapored Mr. Vertrees.   "We
    could have managed somehow without it.  At least she ought to have  consulted
    me, and if she insisted I could have arranged the details with  the--the
    dealer."

    "She thought that it might be--annoying for you," Mrs. Vertrees  explained.
    "Really, she planned for you not to know about it until they  had
    removed--until after to-morrow, that is, but I decided to--to  mention it.
    You see, she didn't even tell me about it until this  morning.  She has
    another ides, too, I'm afraid.  It's--it's--"

    "Well?" he urged, as she found it difficult to go on.

    "Her other idea is--that is, it was--I think it can be avoided, of  course--it
    was about her furs."

    "No!" he exclaimed, quickly.  "I won't have it!  You must see to that.   I'd
    rather not talk to her about it, but you mustn't let her."

    "I'll try not," his wife promised.  "Of course, they're very handsome."

    "All the more reason for her to keep them!" he returned, irritably.   "We're
    not THAT far gone, I think!"

    "Perhaps not yet," Mrs. Vertrees said.  "She seems to be troubled about
    the--the coal matter and--about Tilly.  Of course the piano will take  care of
    some things like those for a while and--"

    "I don't like it.  I gave her the piano to play on, not to--"

    "You mustn't be distressed about it in ONE way," she said, comfortingly.
    "She arranged with the--with the purchaser that the men will come for  it
    about half after five in the afternoon.  The days are so short now  it's
    really quite winter."

    "Oh, yes," he agreed, moodily.  "So far as that goes people have a right  to
    move a piece of furniture without stirring up the neighbors, I  suppose, even
    by daylight.  I don't suppose OUR neighbors are paying much  attention just
    now, though I hear Sheridan was back in his office early  the morning after
    the funeral."

    Mrs. Vertrees made a little sound of commiseration.  "I don't believe  that
    was because he wasn't suffering, though.  I'm sure it was only  because he
    felt his business was so important.  Mary told me he seemed  wrapped up in his
    son's succeeding; and that was what he bragged about  most.  He isn't vulgar
    in his boasting, I understand; he doesn't talk a  great deal about his--his
    actual money--though there was something  about blades of grass that I didn't
    comprehend.  I think he meant  something about his energy--but perhaps not.
    No, his bragging usually  seemed to be not so much a personal vainglory as
    about his family and the  greatness of this city."

    "'Greatness of this city'!" Mr. Vertrees echoed, with dull bitterness.   "It's
    nothing but a coal-hole!  I suppose it looks 'great' to the man who  has the
    luck to make it work for him.  I suppose it looks 'great' to any  YOUNG man,
    too, starting out to make his fortune out of it.  The fellows  that get what
    they want out of it say it's 'great,' and everybody else  gets the habit.  But
    you have a different point of view if it's the city  that got what it wanted
    out of you!  Of course Sheridan says it's 'great'."

    Mrs. Vertrees seemed unaware of this unusual outburst.  "I believe," she
    began, timidly, "he doesn't boast of--that is, I understand he has  never
    seemed so interested in the--the other one."

    Her husband's face was dark, but at that a heavier shadow fell upon it;  he
    looked more haggard than before.  "'The other one'," he repeated,  averting
    his eyes.  "You mean--you mean the third son--the one that  was here this
    evening?"

    "Yes, the--the youngest," she returned, her voice so feeble it was  almost a
    whisper.

    And then neither of them spoke for several long minutes.  Nor did either  look
    at the other during that silence.

    At last Mr. Vertrees contrived to cough, but not convincingly.  "What--
    ah--what was it Mary said about him out in the hall, when she came  in this
    afternoon?  I heard you asking her something about him, but she  answered in
    such a low voice I didn't--ah--happen to catch it."

    "She--she didn't say much.  All she said was this: I asked her if she  had
    enjoyed her walk with him, and she said, 'He's the most wistful  creature I've
    ever known.'"

    "Well?"

    "That was all.  He IS wistful-looking; and so fragile--though he  doesn't seem
    quite so much so lately.  I was watching Mary from the  window when she went
    out to-day, and he joined her, and if I hadn't known  about him I'd have
    thought he had quite an interesting face."

    "If you 'hadn't known about him'?  Known what?"

    "Oh, nothing, of course," she said, hurriedly.  "Nothing definite, that  is.
    Mary said decidely, long ago, that he's not at all insane, as we  thought at
    first.  It's only--well, of course it IS odd, their attitude  about him.  I
    suppose it's some nervous trouble that makes him--perhaps  a little queer at
    times, so that he can't apply himself to anything--or  perhaps does odd
    things.  But, after all, of course, we only have an  impression about it.  We
    don't know--that is, positively.  I--"  She  paused, then went on: "I didn't
    know just how to ask--that is--I  didn't mention it to Mary.  I didn't--I--"
    The poor lady floundered  pitifully, concluding with a mumble.  "So soon
    after--after the--the  shock."

    "I don't think I've caught more than a glimpse of him," said Mr.  Vertrees.
    "I wouldn't know him if I saw him, but your impression of him  is--"  He broke
    off suddenly, springing to his feet in agitation.  "I  can't image her--oh,
    NO!" he gasped.  And he began to pace the floor.   "A half-witted epileptic!"

    "No, no!" she cried.  "He may be all right.  We--"

    "Oh, it's horrible!  I can't--"  He threw himself back into his chair  again,
    sweeping his hands across his face, then letting them fall limply  at his
    sides.

    Mrs. Vertrees was tremulous.  "You mustn't give way so," she said,  inspired
    for once almost to direct discourse.  "Whatever Mary might think  of doing, it
    wouldn't be on her own account; it would be on ours.  But if  WE
    should--should consider it, that wouldn't be on OUR own account.  It  isn't
    because we think of ourselves."

    "Oh God, no!" he groaned.  "Not for us!  We can go to the poorhouse, but  Mary
    can't be a stenographer!"

    Sighing, Mrs. Vertrees resumed her obliqueness.  "Of course," she  murmured,
    "it all seems very premature, speculating about such things,  but I had a
    queer sort of feeling that she seemed quite interested inthis  --"  She had
    almost said "in this one," but checked herself.  "In this  young man.  It's
    natural, of course; she is always so strong and well,  and he is--he seems to
    be, that is--rather appealing to the--the  sympathies."

    "Yes!" he agreed, bitterly.  "Precisely.  The sympathies!"

    "Perhaps," she faltered--"perhaps you might feel easier if I could have  a
    little talk with some one?"

    "With whom?"

    "I had thought of--not going about it too brusquely, of course, but  perhaps
    just waiting for his name to be mentioned, if I happened to be  talking with
    somebody that knew the family--and then I might find a  chance to say that I
    was sorry to hear he'd been ill so much, and-- Something of that kind
    perhaps?"

    "You don't know anybody that knows the family."

    "Yes.  That is--well, in a way, of course, one OF the family.  That  Mrs.
    Roscoe Sheridan is not a--that is, she's rather a pleasant-faced  little
    woman, I think, and of course rather ordinary.  I think she is  interested
    about--that is, of course, she'd be anxious to be more  intimate with Mary,
    naturally.  She's always looking over here from her  house; she was looking
    out the window this afternoon when Mary went out,  I noticed--though I don't
    think Mary saw her.  I'm sure she wouldn't  think it out of place to--to be
    frank about matters.  She called the  other day, and Mary must rather like
    her--she said that evening that  the call had done her good.  Don't you think
    it might be wise?"

    "Wise?  I don't know.  I feel the whole matter is impossible."

    "Yes, so do I," she returned, promptly.  "It isn't really a thing we  should
    be considering seriously, of course.  Still--"

    "I should say not!  But possibly--"

    Thus they skirmished up and down the field, but before they turned the  lights
    out and went up-stairs it was thoroughly understood between them  that Mrs.
    Vertrees should seek the earliest opportunity to obtain  definite information
    from Sibyl Sheridan concerning the mental and  physical status of Bibbs.  And
    if he were subject to attacks of lunacy,  the unhappy pair decided to prevent
    the sacrifice they supposed their  daughter intended to make of herself.
    Altogether, if there were spiteful  ghosts in the old house that night,
    eavesdropping upon the woeful comedy,  they must have died anew of laughter!

    Mrs. Vertrees's opportunity occurred the very next afternoon.  Darkness  had
    fallen, and the piano-movers had come.  They were carrying the piano  down the
    front steps, and Mrs. Vertrees was standing in the open doorway  behind them,
    preparing to withdraw, when she heard a sharp exclamation;  and Mrs. Roscoe
    Sheridan, bareheaded, emerged from the shadow into the  light of the doorway.

    "Good gracious!" she cried.  "It did give me a fright!"

    "It's Mrs. Sheridan, isn't it?"  Mrs. Vertrees was perplexed by this  informal
    appearance, but she reflected that it might be providential.   "Won't you come
    in?"

    "No.  Oh no, thank you!" Sibyl panted, pressing her hand to her side.   "You
    don't know what a fright you've given me!  And it was nothing but  your
    piano!"  She laughed shrilly.  "You know, since our tragedy coming  so
    suddenly the other day, you have no idea how upset I've been--almost
    hysterical!  And I just glanced out of the window, a minute or so ago,  and
    saw your door wide open and black figures of men against the light,  carrying
    something heavy, and I almost fainted.  You see, it was just the  way it
    looked when I saw them bringing my poor brother-in-law in, next  door, only
    such a few short days ago.  And I thought I'd seen your  daughter start for a
    drive with Bibbs Sheridan in a car about three  o'clock--and--They aren't back
    yet, are they?"

    "No.  Good heavens!"

    "And the only thing I could think of was that something must have  happened to
    them, and I just dashed over--and it was only your PIANO!"   She broke into
    laughter again.  "I suppose you're just sending it  somewhere to be repaired,
    aren't you?"

    "It's--it's being taken down-town," said Mrs. Vertrees.  "Won't you  come in
    and make me a little visit.  I was SO sorry, the other day, that  I was--ah--"
    She stopped inconsequently, then repeated her  invitation.  "Won't you come
    in?  I'd really--"

    "Thank you, but I must be running back.  My husband usually gets home  about
    this time, and I make a little point of it always to be there."

    "That's very sweet."  Mrs. Vertrees descended the steps and walked toward  the
    street with Sibyl.  "It's quite balmy for so late in November, isn't  it?
    Almost like a May evening."

    "I'm afraid Miss Vertrees will miss her piano," said Sibyl, watching the
    instrument disappear into the big van at the curb.  "She plays  wonderfully,
    Mrs. Kittersby tells me."

    "Yes, she plays very well.  One of your relatives came to hear her  yesterday,
    after dinner, and I think she played all evening for him."

    "You mean Bibbs?" asked Sibyl.

    "The--the youngest Mr. Sheridan.  Yes.   He's very musical, isn't he?"

    "I never heard of it.  But I shouldn't think it would matter much whether he
    was or not, if he could get Miss Vertrees to play to him.  Does your  daughter
    expect the piano back soon?"

    "I--I believe not immediately.  Mr. Sheridan came last evening to hear  her
    play because she had arranged with the--that is, it was to be  removed this
    afternoon.  He seems almost well again."

    "Yes."  Sibyl nodded.   "His father's going to try to start him to work."

    "He seems very delicate," said Mrs. Vertrees.  "I shouldn't think he  would be
    able to stand a great deal, either physically or--"  She paused  and then
    added, glowing with the sense of her own adroitness--"or  mentally."

    "Oh, mentally Bibbs is all right," said Sibyl, in an odd voice.

    "Entirely?"  Mrs. Vertrees asked, breathlessly.

    "Yes, entirely."

    "But has he ALWAYS been?"  This question came with the same anxious
    eagerness.

    "Certainly.  He had a long siege of nervous dyspepsia, but he's over it."

    "And you think--"

    "Bibbs is all right.  You needn't wor--" Sibyl choked, and pressed her
    handkerchief to her mouth.  "Good night, Mrs. Vertrees," she said,  hurriedly,
    as the head-lights of an automobile swung round the corner  above, sending a
    brightening glare toward the edge of the pavement where  the two ladies were
    standing.

    "Won't you come in?" urged Mrs. Vertrees, cordially, hearing the sound of  a
    cheerful voice out of the darkness beyond the approaching glare.  "Do!
    There's Mary now, and she--"

    But Sibyl was half-way across the street.  "No, thanks," she called.   "I
    hope she won't miss her piano!"  And she ran into her own house and  plunged
    headlong upon a leather divan in the hall, holding her  handkerchief over her
    mouth.

    The noise of her tumultuous entrance was evidently startling in the  quiet
    house, for upon the bang of the door there followed the crash of a  decanter,
    dropped upon the floor of the dining-room at the end of the  hall; and, after
    a rumble of indistinct profanity, Roscoe came forth,  holding a dripping
    napkin in his hand.

    "What's your excitement?" he demanded.  "What do you find to go into
    hysterics over?  Another death in the family?"

    "Oh, it's funny! she gasped.  "Those old frost-bitten people!  I guess
    THEY'RE getting their come-upance!"  Lying prone, she elevated her feet  in
    the air, clapped her heels together repeatedly, in an ecstasy.

    "Come through, come through!" said her husband, crossly.  "What you  been up
    to?"

    "Me?" she cried, dropping her feet and swinging around to face him.
    "Nothing.  It's them!  Those Vertreeses!"  She wiped her eyes.  "They've  had
    to sell their piano!"

    "Well, what of it?"

    "That Mrs. Kittersby told me all about 'em a week ago," said Sibyl.   "They've
    been hard up for a long time, and she says as long ago as last  winter she
    knew that girl got a pair of walking-shoes re-soled and  patched, because she
    got it done the same place Mrs. Kittersby's cook had  HERS!  And the night of
    the house-warming I kind of got suspicious,  myself.  She didn't have one
    single piece of any kind of real jewelry,  and you could see her dress was an
    old one done over.  Men can't tell  those things, and you all made a big fuss
    over her, but I thought she  looked a sight, myself!  Of course, EDITH was
    crazy to have her, and--"

    "Well, well?" he urged, impatiently.

    "Well, I'm TELLING you!  Mrs. Kittersby says they haven't got a THING!   Just
    absolutely NOTHING--and they don't know anywhere to turn!  The  family's all
    died out but them, and all the relatives they got are very  distant, and live
    East and scarcely know 'em.  She says the whole town's  been wondering what
    WOULD become of 'em.  The girl had plenty chances to  marry up to a year or so
    ago, but she was so indifferent she scared the  men off, and the ones that had
    wanted to went and married other girls.   Gracious!  they were lucky!  Marry
    HER?  The man that found himself tied  up to THAT girl--"

    "Terrible funny, terrible funny!" said Roscoe, with sarcasm.  "It's so  funny
    I broke a cut-glass decanter and spilled a quart of--"

    "Wait!" she begged.  "You'll see.  I was sitting by the window a little  while
    ago, and I saw a big wagon drive up across the street and some men  go into
    the house.  It was too dark to make out much, and for a minute I  got the idea
    they were moving out--the house has been foreclosed on,  Mrs. Kittersby says.
    It seemed funny, too, because I knew that girl was  out riding with Bibbs.
    Well, I thought I'd see, so I slipped over--and  it was their PIANO!  They'd
    sold it and were trying to sneak it out after  dark, so nobody'd catch on!"
    Again she gave way to her enjoyment, but  resumed, as her husband seemed about
    to interrupt the narrative.  "Wait a  minute, can't you?  The old lady was
    superintending, and she gave it all  away.  I sized her up for one of those
    old churchy people that tell all  kinds of lies except when it comes to so
    many words, and then they  can't.  She might just as well told me outright!
    Yes, they'd sold it;  and I hope they'll pay some of their debts.  They owe
    everybody, and last  week a coal-dealer made an awful fuss at the door with
    Mr. Vertrees.    Their cook told our upstairs girl, and she said she didn't
    know WHEN  she'd seen any money, herself!  Did you ever hear of such a case as
    that  girl in you LIFE?"

    "What girl? Their cook?"

    "That Vertrees girl!  Don't you see they looked on our coming up into  this
    neighborhood as their last chance?  They were just going down and  out, and
    here bobs up the green, rich Sheridan family!  So they doll the  girl up in
    her old things, made over, and send her out to get a Sheridan  --she's GOT to
    get one!  And she just goes in blind; and she tries it on  first with YOU.
    You remember, she just plain TOLD you she was going to  mash you, and then she
    found out you were the married one, and turned  right square around to Jim and
    carried him off his feet.  Oh, Jim was  landed--there's no doubt about THAT!
    But Jim was lucky; he didn't  live to STAY landed, and it's a good thing for
    him!"  Sibyl's mirth had  vanished, and she spoke with virulent rapidity.
    "Well, she couldn't get  you, because you were married, and she couldn't get
    Jim, because Jim  died.  And there they were, dead broke!  Do you know what
    she did?  Do  you know what she's DOING?"

    "No, I don't," said Roscoe, gruffly.

    Sibyl's voice rose and culminated in a scream of renewed hilarity.   "BIBBS!
    She waited in the grave-yard, and drove home with him from JIM'S  FUNERAL!
    Never spoke to him before!  Jim wasn't COLD!"

    She rocked herself back and forth upon the divan.  "Bibbs!" she  shrieked.
    "Bibbs!  Roscoe, THINK of it!  BIBBS!"

    He stared unsympathetically, but her mirth was unabated for all that.   "And
    yesterday," she continued, between paroxysms--"yesterday she came  out of the
    house--just as he was passing.  She must have been looking  out--waiting for
    the chance; I saw the old lady watching at the  window!  And she got him there
    last night--to 'PLAY' to him; the old  lady gave that away!  And to-day she
    made him take her out in a machine!  And the cream of it is that they didn't
    even know  whether he was INSANE or not--they thought maybe he was, but she
    went  after him just the same!  The old lady set herself to pump me about it
    to-day.  BIBBS!  Oh, my Lord!  BIBBS!"

    But Roscoe looked grim.  "So it's funny to you, is it?  It sounds kind of
    pitiful to me.  I should think it would to a woman, too."

    "Oh, it might," she returned, sobering.  "It might, if those people  weren't
    such frozen-faced smart Alecks.  If they'd had the decency to  come down off
    the perch a little I probably wouldn't think it was funny,  but to see 'em sit
    up on their pedestal all the time they're eating dirt  --well, I think it's
    funny!  That girl sits up as if she was Queen  Elizabeth, and expects people
    to wallow on the ground before her until  they get near enough for her to give
    'em a good kick with her old patched  shoes--oh, she'd do THAT, all
    right!--and then she powders up and  goes out to mash--BIBBS SHERIDAN!"

    "Look here," said Roscoe, heavily; "I don't care about that one way or
    another.  If you're through, I got something I want to talk to you  about.  I
    was going to, that day just before we heard about Jim."

    At this Sibyl stiffened quickly; her eyes became intensely bright.  "What  is
    it?"

    "Well," he began, frowning, "what I was going to say then--"  He broke  off,
    and, becoming conscious that he was still holding the wet napkin in  his hand,
    threw it pettishly into a corner.  "I never expected I'd have  to say anything
    like this to anybody I MARRIED; but I was going to ask  you what was the
    matter between you and Lamhorn."

    Sibyl uttered a sharp monosyllable. "Well?"

    "I felt the time had come for me to know about it," he went on.  "You  never
    told me anything--"

    "You never asked," she interposed, curtly.

    "Well, we'd got in a way of not talking much," said Roscoe.  "It looks to  me
    now as if we'd pretty much lost the run of each other the way a good  many
    people do.  I don't say it wasn't my fault.  I was up early and down  to work
    all day, and I'd come home tired at night, and want to go to bed  soon as I'd
    got the paper read--unless there was some good musical show  in town.  Well,
    you seemed all right until here lately, the last month or  so, I began to see
    something was wrong.  I couldn't help seeing it."

    "Wrong?" she said.  "What like?"

    "You changed; you didn't look the same. You were all strung up and  excited
    and fidgety; you got to looking peakid and run down.  Now then,  Lamhorn had
    been going with us a good while, but I noticed that not long  ago you got to
    picking on him about every little thing he did; you got to  quarreling with
    him when I was there and when I wasn't.  I could see  you'd been quarreling
    whenever I came in and he was here."

    "Do you object to that?" asked Sibyl, breathing quickly.

    "Yes--when it injures my wife's health!" he returned, with a quick lift  of
    his eyes to hers.  "You began to run down just about the time you  began
    falling out with him." He stepped close to her.  "See here, Sibyl,  I'm going
    to know what it means."

    "Oh, you ARE?" she snapped.

    "You're trembling," he said, gravely.

    "Yes.  I'm angry enough to do more than tremble, you'll find.  Go on!"

    "That was all I was going to say the other day," he said.  "I was going to
    ask you--"

    "Yes, that was all you were going to say THE OTHER DAY.  Yes.  What else  have
    you to say to-night?"

    "To-night," he replied, with grim swiftness, "I want to know why you keep
    telephoning him you want to see him since he stopped coming here."

    She made a long, low sound of comprehension before she said, "And what  else
    did Edith want you to ask me?"

    "I want to know what you say over the telephone to Lamhorn," he said,
    fiercely.

    "Is that all Edith told you to ask me?  You saw her when you stopped in  there
    on your way home this evening, didn't you?  Didn't she tell you  then what I
    said over the telephone to Mr. Lamhorn?"

    "No, she didn't!" he vociferated, his voice growing louder.  "She said,  'You
    tell your wife to stop telephoning Robert Lamhorn to come and see  her,
    because he isn't going to do it!'  That's what she said!  And I want  to know
    what it means.  I intend--"

    A maid appeared at the lower end of the hall.  "Dinner is ready," she  said,
    and, giving the troubled pair one glance, went demurely into the  dining-room.
    Roscoe disregarded the interruption.

    "I intend to know exactly what has been going on," he declared.  "I mean  to
    know just what--"

    Sibyl jumped up, almost touching him, standing face to face with him.

    "Oh, you DO!" she cried, shrilly.  "You mean to know just what's what, do
    you?  You listen to your sister insinuating ugly things about your wife,  and
    then you come home making a scene before the servants and humiliating  me in
    their presence!  Do you suppose that Irish girl didn't hear every  word you
    said?  You go in there and eat your dinner alone!  Go on!  Go  and eat your
    dinner alone--because I won't eat with you!"

    And she broke away from the detaining grasp he sought to fasten upon her,  and
    dashed up the stairway, panting.  He heard the door of her room slam
    overhead, and the sharp click of the key in the lock.

    At seven o'clock on the last morning of that month, Sheridan, passing  through
    the upper hall on his way to descend the stairs for breakfast,  found a couple
    of scribbled sheets of note-paper lying on the floor.  A  window had been open
    in Bibbs's room the evening before; he had left his  note-book on the
    sill--and the sheets were loose.  The door was open,  and when Bibbs came in
    and closed it, he did not notice that the two  sheets had blown out into the
    hall.  Sheridan recognized the handwriting  and put the sheets in his coat
    pocket, intending to give them to George  or Jackson for return to the owner,
    but he forgot and carried them  down-town with him.  At noon he found himself
    alone in his office, and,  having a little leisure, remembered the bits of
    manuscript, took them  out, and glanced at them.  A grance was enough to
    reveal that they were  not epistolary.  Sheridan would not have read a
    "private letter" that  came into his possession in that way, though in a
    "matter of business" he  might have felt it his duty to take advantage of an
    opportunity afforded  in any manner whatsoever.  Having satisfied himself that
    Bibbs's  scribblings were only a sample of the kind of writing his son
    preferred  to the machine-shop, he decided, innocently enough, that he would
    be  justified in reading them.

    It appears that a lady will nod pleasantly upon some windy generalization  of
    a companion, and will wear the most agreeable expression of accepting  it as
    the law, and then--days afterward, when the thing is a mummy to  its
    promulgator--she will inquire out of a clear sky: "WHY did you say  that the
    people down-town have nothing in life that a chicken hasn't?   What did you
    mean?"  And she may say it in a manner that makes a sensible  reply very
    difficult--you will be so full of wonder that she remembered  so seriously.

    Yet, what does the rooster lack?  He has food and shelter; he is warm in
    winter; his wives raise not one fine family for him, but dozens.  He has  a
    clear sky over him; he breathes sweet air; he walks in his April  orchard
    under a roof of flowers.  He must die, violently perhaps, but  quickly.  Is
    Midas's cancer a better way?  The rooster's wives and  children must die.  Are
    those of Midas immortal?  His life is shorter than  the life of Midas, but
    Midas's life is only a sixth as long as that of  the Galapagos tortoise.

    The worthy money-worker takes his vacation so that he may refresh himself
    anew for the hard work of getting nothing that the rooster doesn't get.   The
    office-building has an elevator, the rooster flies up to the bough.   Midas
    has a machine to take him to his work; the rooster finds his worm  underfoot.
    The "business man" feels a pressure sometimes, without knowing  why, and sits
    late at wine after the day's labor; next morning he curses his  head because
    it interferes with the work--he swears never to relieve  that pressure again.
    The rooster has no pressure and no wine; this  difference is in his favor.

    The rooster is a dependent; he depends upon the farmer and the weather.
    Midas is a dependent; he depends upon the farmer and the weather.  The
    rooster thinks only of the moment; Midas provides for to-morrow.  What  does
    he provide for to-morrow?  Nothing that the rooster will not have  without
    providing.

    The rooster and the prosperous worker: they are born, they grub, they  love;
    they grub and love grubbing; they grub and they die.  Neither knows  beauty;
    neither knows knowledge.  And after all, when Midas dies and the  rooster
    dies, there is one thing Midas has had and rooster has not.   Midas has had
    the excitement of accumulating what he has grubbed, and that  has been his
    life and his love and his god.  He cannot take that god  with him when he
    dies.  I wonder if the worthy gods are those we can take  with us.

    Midas must teach all to be as Midas; the young must be raised in his
    religion--

    The manuscript ended there, and Sheridan was not anxious for more.  He
    crumpled the sheets into a ball, depositing it (with vigor) in a  waste-basket
    beside him; then, rising, he consulted a Cyclopedia of  Names, which a
    book-agent had somehow sold to him years before; a volume  now first put to
    use for the location of "Midas."  Having read the  legend, Sheridan walked up
    and down the spacious office, exhaling the  breath of contempt. "Dam' fool!"
    he mumbled.  But this was no new thought, nor was the contrariness of Bibbs's
    notes a surpise to him; and presently he dismissed the matter from his mind.

    He felt very lonely, and this was, daily, his hardest hour.  For a long time
    he and Jim had lunched together habitually.  Roscoe preferred a club luncheon,
    but Jim and his father almost always went to a small restaurant near the
    Sheridan Building, where they spent twenty minutes in the consumption of food,
    and twenty in talk, with cigars.  Jim came for his father every day, at five
    minutes after twelve, and Sheridan was again in his office at five minutes
    before one.  But now that Jim no longer came, Sheridan remained alone in his
    office; he had not gone out to lunch since Jim's death, nor did he have
    anything sent to him--he fasted until evening.

    It was the time he missed Jim personally the most--the voice and eyes and
    handshake, all brisk and alert, all business-like.  But these things were not
    the keenest in Sheridan's grief; his sense of loss went far deeper.  Roscoe
    was dependable, a steady old wheel-horse, and that was a great comfort; but it
    was in Jim that Sheridan had most happily perceived his own likeness.  Jim was
    the one who would have been surest to keep the great property growing greater,
    year by year.  Sheridan had fallen asleep, night after night, picturing what
    the growth would be under Jim.  He had believed that Jim was absolutely
    certain to be one of the biggest men in the country.  Well, it was all up to
    Roscoe now!

    That reminded him of a question he had in mind to ask Roscoe.  It was a
    question Sheridan considered of no present importance, but his wife had
    suggested it--though vaguely--and he had meant to speak to Roscoe about it.
    However, Roscoe had not come into his father's office for several days, and
    when Sheridan had seen his son at home there had been no opportunity.

    He waited until the greater part of his day's work was over, toward four
    o'clock, and then went down to Roscoe's office, which was on a lower floor.
    He found several men waiting for business interviews in an outer room of the
    series Roscoe occupied; and he supposed that he would find his son busy with
    others, and that his question would have to be postponed, but when he entered
    the door marked "R. C. Sheridan.  Private," Roscoe was there alone.

    He was sitting with his back to the door, his feet on a window-sill, and he
    did not turn as his father opened the door.

    "Some pretty good men out there waitin' to see you, my boy," said Sheridan.
    "What's the matter?"

    "Nothing," Roscoe answered indistinctly, not moving.

    "Well, I guess that's all right, too.  I let 'em wait sometimes myself!  I
    just wanted to ask you a question, but I expect it 'll keep, if you're workin'
    something out in your mind!"

    Roscoe made no reply; and his father, who had turned to the door, paused with
    his hand on the knob, staring curiously at the motionless figure in the chair.
    Usually the son seemed pleased and eager when he came to the office.  "You're
    all right, ain't you?" said Sheridan.  "Not sick, are you?"

    "No."

    Sheridan was puzzled; then, abruptly, he decided to ask his question.  "I
    wanted to talk to you about that young Lamhorn," he said.  "I guess your
    mother thinks he's comin' to see Edith pretty often, and you known him longer
    'n any of us, so--"

    "I won't," said Roscoe, thickly--"I won't say a dam' thing about him!"

    Sheridan uttered an exclamation and walked quickly to a position near the
    window where he could see his son's face.  Roscoe's eyes were bloodshot and
    vacuous; his hair was disordered, his mouth was distorted, and he was deathly
    pale.  The father stood aghast.

    "By George!" he muttered.  "ROSCOE!"

    "My name," said Roscoe.  "Can' help that."

    "ROSCOE!"  Blank astonishment was Sheridan's first sensation.  Probably
    nothing in the world could have more amazed his than to find Roscoe--the
    steady old wheel-horse--in this condition.  "How'd you GET this way?" he
    demanded.  "You caught cold and took too much for it?"

    For reply Roscoe laughed hoarsely.  "Yeuh!  Cold!  I been drinkun all time,
    lately.  Firs' you notice it?"

    "By George!" cried Sheridan.  "I THOUGHT I'd smelt it on you a good deal
    lately, but I wouldn't 'a' believed you'd take more'n was good for you. Boh!
    To see you like a common hog!"

    Roscoe chuckled and threw out his right arm in a meaningless gensture. "Hog!"
    he repeated, chuckling.

    "Yes, a hog!" said Sheridan, angrily.  "In business hours!  I don't object to
    anybody's takin' a drink if you wants to, out o' business hours; nor, if a man
    keeps his work right up to the scratch, I wouldn't be the one to baste him if
    he got good an' drunk once in two, three years, maybe.  It ain't MY way.  I
    let it alone, but I never believed in forcin' my way on a grown-up son in
    moral matters.  I guess I was wrong!  You think them men out there are waitin'
    to talk business with a drunkard?  You think you can come to your office and
    do business drunk?  By George!  I wonder how often this has been happening and
    me not on to it!  I'll have a look over your books to-morrow, and I'll--"

    Roscoe stumbled to his feet, laughing wildly, and stood swaying, contriving to
    hold himself in position by clutching the back of the heavy chair in which he
    had been sitting.

    "Hoo--hoorah!" he cried.  "'S my principles, too.  Be drunkard all you want
    to--outside business hours.  Don' for Gossake le'n'thing innerfere business
    hours!  Business!  Thassit!  You're right, father.  Drink!  Die! L'everything
    go to hell, but DON' let innerfere business!"

    Sheridan had seized the telephone upon Roscoe's desk, and was calling his own
    office, overhead.  "Abercrombie?  Come down to my son Roscoe's suite and get
    rid of some gentlemen that are waitin' there to see him in room two-fourteen.
    There's Maples and Schirmer and a couple o' fellows on the Kinsey business.
    Tell 'em something's come up I have to go over with Roscoe, and tell 'em to
    come back day after to-morrow at two.  You needn't come in to let me know
    they're gone; we don't want to be disturbed.  Tell Pauly to call my house and
    send Claus down here with a closed car.  We may have to go out.  Tell him to
    hustle, and call me at Roscoe's room as soon as the car gets here. 'T's all!"

    Roscoe had laughed bitterly throughout this monologue.  "Drunk in business
    hours!  Thass awf'l!  Mus'n' do such thing!  Mus'n' get drunk, mus'n' gamble,
    mus'n' kill 'nybody--not in business hours!  All right any other time.  Kill
    'nybody you want to--'s long 'tain't in business hours!  Fine!  Mus'n' have
    any trouble 't 'll innerfere business.  Keep your trouble 't home.  Don' bring
    it to th' office.  Might innerfere business!  Have funerals on Sunday--might
    innerfere business!  Don' let your wife innerfere business! Keep all, all, ALL
    your trouble an' your meanness, an' your trad--your tradegy--keep 'em ALL for
    home use!  If you got die, go on die 't home--don' die round th' office!
    Might innerfere business!"

    Sheridan picked up a newspaper from Roscoe's desk, and sat down with his back
    to his son, affecting to read.  Roscoe seemed to be unaware of his father's
    significant posture.

    "You know wh' I think?" he went on.  "I think Bibbs only one the fam'ly any
    'telligence at all.  Won' work, an' di'n' get married.  Jim worked, an' he got
    killed.  I worked, an' I got married.  Look at me!  Jus' look at me, I ask
    you.  Fine 'dustriss young business man.  Look whass happen' to me!  Fine!"
    He lifted his hand from the sustaining chair in a deplorable gesture, and,
    immediately losing his balance, fell across the chair and caromed to the floor
    with a crash, remaining prostrate for several minutes, during which Sheridan
    did not relax his apparent attention to the newspaper.  He did not even look
    round at the sound of Roscoe's fall.

    Roscoe slowly climbed to an upright position, pulling himself up by holding to
    the chair.  He was slightly sobered outwardly, having progressed in the
    prostrate interval to a state of befuddlement less volatile.  He rubbed his
    dazed eyes with the back of his left hand.

    "What--what you ask me while ago?" he said.

    "Nothin'."

    "Yes, you did.  What--what was it?"

    "Nothin'.  You better sit down."

    "You ask' me what I thought about Lamhorn.  You did ask me that.  Well, I
    won't tell you.  I won't say dam' word 'bout him!"

    The telephone-bell tinkled.  Sheridan placed the receiver to his ear and said,
    "Right down."  Then he got Roscoe's coat and hat from a closet and brought
    them to his son.  "Get into this coat," he said.  "You're goin' home."

    "All ri'," Roscoe murmured, obediently.

    They went out into the main hall by a side door, not passing through the outer
    office; and Sheridan waited for an empty elevator, stopped it, and told the
    operator to take on no more passengers until they reached the ground floor.
    Roscoe walked out of the building and got into the automobile without
    lurching, and twenty minutes later walked into his own house in the same
    manner, neither he nor his father having spoken a word in the interval.

    Sheridan did not go in with him; he went home, and to his own room without
    meeting any of his family.  But as he passed Bibbs's door her heard from
    within the sound of a cheerful young voice humming jubilant fragments of song:

    WHO looks a mustang in the eye? ... With a leap from the ground To the saddle
    in a bound. And away--and away! Hi-yay!

    It was the first time in Sheridan's life that he had ever detected any musical
    symptom whatever in Bibbs--he had never even heard him whistle --and it seemed
    the last touch of irony that the useless fool should be merry to-day.

    To Sheridan it was Tom o' Bedlam singing while the house burned; and he did
    not tarry to enjoy the melody, but went into his own room and locked the door.

    He emerged only upon a second summons to dinner, two hours later, and came to
    the table so white and silent that his wife made her anxiety manifest and was
    but partially reassured by his explanation that his lunch had "disagreed" with
    him a little.

    Presently, however, he spoke effectively.  Bibbs, whose appetite had become
    hearty, was helping himself to a second breast of capon from white-jacket's
    salver.  "Here's another difference between Midas and chicken," Sheridan
    remarked, grimly.  "Midas can eat rooster, but rooster can't eat Midas.  I
    reckon you overlooked that.  Midas looks to me like he had the advantage
    there."

    Bibbs retained enough presence of mind to transfer the capon breast to his
    plate without dropping it and to respond, "Yes--he crows over it."

    Having returned his antagonists's fire in this fashion, he blushed--for he
    could blush distinctly now--and his mother looked upon him with pleasure,
    thought the reference to Midas and roosters was of course jargon to her.  "Did
    you ever see anybody improve the way that child has!" she exclaimed.  "I
    declare, Bibbs, sometimes lately you look right handsome!"

    "He's got to be such a gadabout," Edith giggled.

    "I found something of his on the floor up-stairs this morning, before anybody
    was up," said Sheridan.  "I reckon if people lose things in this house and
    expect to get 'em back, they better get up as soon as I do."

    "What was it he lost?" asked Edith.

    "He knows!" her father returned.  "Seems to me like I forgot to bring it home
    with me.  I looked it over--thought probably it was something pretty
    important, belongin' to a busy man like him."  He affected to search his
    pockets.  "What DID I do with it, now?  Oh yes!  Seems to me like I remember
    leavin' it down at the office--in the waste-basket."

    "Good place for it," Bibbs murmured, still red.

    Sheridan gave him a grin.  "Perhaps pretty soon you'll be gettin' up early
    enough to fine things before I do!"

    It was a threat, and Bibbs repeated the substance of it, later in the evening,
    to Mary Vertrees--they had come to know each other that well.

    "My time's here at last," he said, as they sat together in the melancholy
    gas-light of the room which had been denuded of its piano. That removal had
    left an emptiness so distressing to Mr. and Mrs. Vertrees that neither of them
    had crossed the threshold since the dark day; but the gas-light, though from a
    single jet, shed no melancholy upon Bibbs, nor could any room seem bare that
    knew the glowing presence of Mary.  He spoke lightly, not sadly.

    "Yes, it's come.  I've shirked and put off, but I can't shirk and put off any
    longer.  It's really my part to go to him--at least it would save my face.  He
    means what he says, and the time's come to serve my sentence. Hard labor for
    life, I think."

    Mary shook her head.  "I don't think so.  He's too kind."

    "You think my father's KIND?"  And Bibbs stared at her.

    "Yes.  I'm sure of it.  I've felt that he has a great, brave heart.  It's only
    that he has to be kind in his own way--because he can't understand any other
    way."

    "Ah yes," said Bibbs.  "If that's what you mean by 'kind'!"

    She looked at him gravely, earnest concern in her friendly eyes.  "It's going
    to be pretty hard for you, isn't it?"

    "Oh--self-pity!" he returned, smiling.  "This has been just the last flicker
    of revolt.  Nobody minds work if he likes the kind of work. There'd be no
    loafers in the world if each man found the thing that he could do best; but
    the only work I happen to want to do is useless--so I have to give it up.
    To-morrow I'll be a day-laborer."

    "What is it like--exactly?"

    "I get up at six," he said.  "I have a lunch-basket to carry with me, which is
    aristocratic and no advantage.  The other workmen have tin buckets, and tin
    buckets are better.  I leave the house at six-thirty, and I'm at work in my
    overalls at seven.  I have an hour off at noon, and work again from one till
    five."

    "But the work itself?"

    "It wasn't muscularly exhausting--not at all.  They couldn't give me a heavier
    job because I wasn't good enough."

    "But what will you do?  I want to know."

    "When I left," said Bibbs, "I was 'on' what they call over there a
    'clipping-machine,' in one of the 'by-products' departments, and that's what
    I'll be sent back to."

    "But what is it?" she insisted.

    Bibbs explained.  "It's very simple and very easy.  I feed long strips of zinc
    into a pair of steel jaws, and the jaws bite the zinc into little circles.
    All I have to do is to see that the strip goes into the jaws at a certain
    angle--and yet I was a very bad hand at it."

    He had kept his voice cheerful as he spoke, but he had grown a shade paler,
    and there was a latent anguish deep in his eyes.  He may have known it and
    wished her not to see it, for he turned away.

    "You do that all day long?" she asked, and as he nodded, "It seems
    incredible!" she exclaimed.  "YOU feeding a strip of zinc into a machine nine
    hours a day!  No wonder--"  She broke off, and then, after a keen glance at
    his face, she said: "I should think you WOULD have been a 'bad hand at it'!"

    He laughed ruefully.  "I think it's the noise, though I'm ashamed to say it.
    You see, it's a very  powerful machine, and there's a sort of rhythmical
    crashing--a crash every time the jaws bite off a circle."

    "How often is that?"

    "The thing should make about sixty-eight disks a minute--a little more than
    one a second."

    "And you're close to it?"

    "Oh, the workman has to sit in its lap," he said, turning to her more gaily.
    "The others don't mind .  You see, it's something wrong with me. I have an
    idiotic way of flinching from the confounded thing--I flinch and duck a little
    every time the crash comes, and I couldn't get over it. I was a treat to the
    other workmen in that room; they'll be glad to see me back.  They used to
    laugh at me all day long."

    Mary's gaze was averted from Bibbs now; she sat with her elbow resting on the
    arm of the chair, her lifted hand pressed against her cheek.  She was staring
    at the wall, and her eyes had a burning brightness in them.

    "It doesn't seem possible any one could do that to you," she said, in a low
    voice.  "No.  He's not kind.  He ought to be proud to help you to the leisure
    to write books; it should be his greatest privilege to have them published for
    you--"

    "Can't you SEE him?" Bibbs interrupted, a faint ripple of hilarity in his
    voice.  "If he could understand what you're saying--and if you can imagine his
    taking such a notion, he's have had R. T. Bloss put up posters all over the
    country: 'Read B. Sheridan.  Read the Poet with a Punch!' No. It's just as
    well he never got the--But what's the use?  I've never written anything worth
    printing, and I never shall."

    "You could!" she said.

    "That's because you've never seen the poor little things I've tried to do."

    "You wouldn't let me, but I KNOW you could!  Ah, it's a pity!"

    "It isn't," said BIBBS, honestly.  "I never could--but you're the kindest lady
    in this world, Miss Vertrees."

    She gave him a flashing glance, and it was as kind as he said she was. "That
    sounds wrong," she said, impulsively.  "I mean 'Miss Vertrees.' I've thought
    of you by your first name ever since I met you.  Wouldn't you rather call me
    'Mary'?"

    Bibbs was dazzled; he drew a long, deep breath and did not speak.

    "Wouldn't you?" she asked, without a trace of coquetry.

    "If I CAN!" he said, in a low voice.

    "Ah, that's very pretty!" she laughed.  "You're such an honest person, it's
    pleasant to have you gallant sometimes, by way of variety."  She became grave
    again immediately.  "I hear myself laughing as if it were some one else.  It
    sounds like laughter on the eve of a great calamity." She got up restlessly,
    crossed the room and leaned against the wall, facing him.  "You've GOT to go
    back to that place?"

    He nodded.

    "And the other time you did it--"

    "Just over it," said Bibbs.  "Two years.  But I don't mind the prospect of a
    repetition so much as--"

    "So much as what?" she prompted, as he stopped.

    Bibbs looked up at her shyly.  "I want to say it, but--but I come to a dead
    balk when I try.  I--"

    "Go on.  Say it, whatever it is," she bade him.  "You wouldn't know how to say
    anything I shouldn't like."

    "I doubt if you'd either like or dislike what I want to say," he returned,
    moving uncomfortably in his chair and looking at his feet--he seemed to feel
    awkward, thoroughly.  "You see, all my life--until I met you--if I ever felt
    like saying anything, I wrote it instead.  Saying things is a new trick for
    me, and this--well, it's just this:  I used to feel as if I hadn't ever had
    any sort of a life at all.  I'd never been of use to anything or anybody, and
    I'd never had anything, myself, except a kind of haphazard thinking.  But now
    it's different--I'm still of no use to anybody, and I don't see any prospect
    of being useful, but I have had something for myself.  I've had a beautiful
    and happy experience, and it makes my life seem to be--I mean I'm glad I've
    lived it!  That's all; it's your letting me be near you sometimes, as you
    have, this strange, beautiful, happy little while!"

    He did not once look up, and reached silence, at the end of what he had to
    say, with his eyes still awkwardly regarding his feet.  She did not speak, but
    a soft rustling of her garments let him know that she had gone back to her
    chair again.  The house was still; the shabby old room was so quiet that the
    sound of a creaking in the wall seemed sharp and loud.

    And yet, when Mary spoke at last, her voice was barely audible.  "If you think
    it has been--happy--to be friends with me--you'd want to--to make it last."

    "Yes," said Bibbs, as faintly.

    "You'd want to go on being my friend as long as we live, wouldn't you?"

    "Yes," he gulped.

    "But you make that kind of speech to me because you think it's over."

    He tried to evade her.  "Oh, a day-laborer can't come in his overalls--"

    "No," she interrupted, with a sudden sharpness.  "You said what you did
    because you think the shop's going to kill you."

    "No, no!"

    "Yes, you do think that!"  She rose to her feet again and came and stood
    before him.  "Or you think it's going to send you back to the sanitarium.
    Don't deny it, Bibbs.  There!  See how easily I call you that!  You see I'm a
    friend, or I couldn't do it.  Well, if you meant what you said-- and you did
    mean it, I know it!--you're not going to go back to the sanitarium.  The shop
    sha'n't hurt you.  It sha'n't!"

    And now Bibbs looked up.  She stood before him, straight and tall, splendid in
    generous strength, her eyes shining and wet.

    "If I mean THAT much to you," she cried, "they can't harm you!  Go back to the
    shop--but come to me when your day's work is done.  Let the machines crash
    their sixty-eight times a minute, but remember each crash that deafens you is
    that much nearer the evening and me!"

    He stumbled to his feet.  "You say--" he gasped.

    "Every evening, dear Bibbs!"

    He could only stare, bewildered.

    "EVERY evening.  I want you.  They sha'n't hurt you again!"  And she held out
    her hand to him; it was strong and warm in his tremulous clasp.  "If I could,
    I'd go and feed the strips of zinc to the machine with you," she said.  "But
    all day long I'll send my thoughts to you.  You must keep remembering that
    your friend stands beside you.  And when the work is done --won't the night
    make up for the day?"

    Light seemed to glow from her; he was blinded by that radiance of kindness.
    But all he could say was, huskily, "To think you're there-- with me--standing
    beside the old zinc-eater--"

    And they laughed and looked at each other, and at last Bibbs found what it
    meant not to be alone in the world.  He had a friend.

    When he came into the New House, a few minutes later, he found his father
    sitting alone by the library fire.  Bibbs went in and stood before him. "I'm
    cured, father," he said.  "When do I go back to the shop?  I'm ready."

    The desolate and grim old man did not relax.  "I was sittin' up to give you a
    last chance to say something like that.  I reckon it's about time! I just
    wanted to see if you'd have manhood enough not to make me take you over there
    by the collar.  Last night I made up my mind I'd give you just one more day.
    Well, you got to it before I did--pretty close to the eleventh hour!  All
    right.  Start in to-morrow.  It's the first o' the month.  Think you can get
    up in time?"

    "Six o'clock," Bibbs responded, briskly.  "And I want to tell you--I'm going
    in a 'cheerful spirit.'  As you said, I'll go and I'll 'like it'!"

    "That's YOUR lookout!" his father grunted.  "They'll put you back on the
    clippin'-machine.  You get nine dollars a week."

    "More than I'm worth, too," said Bibbs, cheerily.  "That reminds me, I didn't
    mean YOU by 'Midas' in that nonsense I'd been writing.  I meant--"

    "Makes a hell of a lot o' difference what you meant!"

    "I just wanted you to know.  Good night, father."

    "G'night!"

    The sound of the young man's footsteps ascending the stairs became inaudible,
    and the house was quiet.  But presently, as Sheridan sat staring angrily at
    the fire, the shuffling of a pair of slipers could be heard descending, and
    Mrs. Sheridan made her appearance, her oblique expression and the state of her
    toilette being those of a person who, after trying unsuccessfully to sleep on
    one side, has got up to look for burglars.

    "Papa!" she exclaimed, drowsily.  "Why'n't you go to bed?  It must be goin' on
    'leven o'clock!"

    She yawned, and seated herself near him, stretching out her hands to the fire.
    "What's the matter?" she asked, sleep and anxiety striving sluggishly with
    each other in her voice.  "I knew you were worried all dinner-time.  You got
    something new on your mind besides Jim's bein' taken away like he was.  What's
    worryin' you now, papa?"

    "Nothin'."

    She jeered feebly.  "N' tell ME that!  You sat up to see Bibbs, didn't you?"

    "He starts in at the shop again to-morrow morning," said Sheridan.

    "Just the same as he did before?"

    "Just pre-CISELY!"

    "How--how long you goin' to keep him at it, papa?" she asked, timidly.

    "Until he KNOWS something!"  The unhappy man struck his palms together, then
    got to his feet and began to pace the room, as was his wont when he talked.
    "He'll go back to the machine he couldn't learn to tend properly in the six
    months he was there, and he'll stick to it till he DOES learn it!  Do you
    suppose that lummix ever asked himself WHY I want him to learn it?  No!  And I
    ain't a-goin' to tell him, either!  When he went there I had 'em set him on
    the simplest machine we got--and he stuck there!  How much prospect would
    there be of his learnin' to run the whole business if he can't run the easiest
    machine in it?  I sent him there to make him THOROUGH.  And what happened?  He
    didn't LIKE it!  That boy's whole life, there's been a settin' up o' something
    mulish that's against everything I want him to do.  I don't know what it is,
    but it's got to be worked out of him.  Now, labor ain't any more a simple
    question than what it was when we were young.  My idea is that, outside o'
    union troubles, the man that can manage workin'-in men is the man that's been
    one himself.  Well, I set Bibbs to learn the men and to learn the business,
    and HE set himself to balk on the first job!  That's what he did, and the
    balk's lasted close on to three years.  If he balks again I'm just done with
    him!  Sometimes I feel like I was pretty near done with everything, anyhow!"

    "I knew there was something else," said Mrs. Sheridan, blinking over a yawn.
    "You better let it go till to-morrow and get to bed now--'less you'll tell
    me?"

    "Suppose something happened to Roscoe," he said.  "THEN what'd I have to look
    forward to?  THEN what could I depend on to hold things together?  A lummix!
    A lummix that hasn't learned how to push a strip o' zinc along a groove!"

    "Roscoe?" she yawned.  "You needn't worry about Roscoe, papa.  He's the
    strongest child we had.  I never did know anybody keep better health than he
    does.  I don't believe he's even had a cold in five years.  You better go up
    to bed, papa."

    "Suppose something DID happen to him, though.  You don't know what it means,
    keepin' property together these days--just keepin' it ALIVE, let alone makin'
    it grow the way I do.  I've seen too many estates hacked away in chunks, big
    and little.  I tell you when a man dies the wolves come out o' the woods, pack
    after pack, to see what they can tear off for themselves; and if that dead
    man's chuldern ain't on the job, night and day, everything he built 'll get
    carried off.  Carried off?  I've seen a big fortune behave like an ash-barrel
    in a cyclone--there wasn't even a dust-heap left to tell where it stood!  I've
    seen it, time and again.  My Lord! when I think o' such things comin' to ME!
    It don't seem like I deserved it--no man ever tried harder to raise his boys
    right than I have.  I planned and planned and planned how to bring 'em up to
    be guards to drive the wolves off, and how to be builders to build, and build
    bigger.  I tell you this business life is no fool's job nowadays--a man's got
    to have eyes in the back of his head.  You hear talk, sometimes, 'd make you
    think the millennium had come--but right the next breath you'll hear somebody
    hollerin' about 'the great unrest.'  You BET there's a 'great unrest'!  There
    ain't any man alive smart enough to see what it's goin' to do to us in the
    end, nor what day it's got set to bust loose, but it's frothin' and bubblin'
    in the boiler.  This country's been fillin' up with it from all over the world
    for a good many years, and the old camp-meetin' days are dead and done with.
    Church ain't what it used to be.  Nothin's what it used to be--everything's
    turned up from the bottom, and the growth is so big the roots stick out in the
    air.  There's an awful ruction goin' on, and you got to keep hoppin' if you're
    goin' to keep your balance on the top of it.  And the schemers!  They run like
    bugs on the bottom of a board--after any piece o' money they hear is loose.
    Fool schemes and crooked schemes; the fool ones are the most and the worst!
    You got to FIGHT to keep your money after you've made it.  And the woods are
    full o' mighty industrious men that's got only one motto: 'Get the other
    fellow's money before he gets yours!'  And when a man's built as I have, when
    he's built good and strong, and made good things grow and prosper--THOSE are
    the fellows that lay for the chance to slide in and sneak the benefit of it
    and put their names to it!  And what's the use of my havin' ever been born, if
    such a thing as that is goin' to happen?  What's the use of my havin' worked
    my life and soul into my business, if it's all goin' to be dispersed and
    scattered soon as I'm in the ground?"

    He strode up and down the long room, gesticulating--little regarding the
    troubled and drowsy figure by the fireside.  His throat rumbled thunderously;
    the words came with stormy bitterness.  "You think this is a time for young
    men to be lyin' on beds of ease?  I tell you there never was such a time
    before; there never was such opportunity.  The sluggard is despoiled while he
    sleeps--yes, by George! if a may lays down they'll eat him before he
    wakes!--but the live man can build straight up till he touches the sky!  This
    is the business man's day; it used to be the soldier's day and the statesman's
    day, but this is OURS!  And it ain't a Sunday to go fishin'--it's turmoil!
    turmoil!--and you got to go out and live it and breathe it and MAKE it
    yourself, or you'll only be a dead man walkin' around dreamin' you're alive.
    And that's what my son Bibbs has been doin' all his life, and what he'd rather
    do now than go out and do his part by me.  And if anything happens to
    Roscoe--"

    "Oh, do stop worryin' over such nonsense," Mrs. Sheridan interrupted,
    irritated into sharp wakefulness for the moment.   "There isn't anything goin'
    to happen to Roscoe, and you're just tormentin' yourself about nothin'.
    Aren't you EVER goin' to bed?"

    Sheridan halted.  "All right, mamma," he said, with a vast sigh.  "Let's go
    up."  And he snapped off the electric light, leaving only the rosy glow of the
    fire.

    "Did you speak to Roscoe?" she yawned, rising lopsidedly in her drowsiness.
    "Did you mention about what I told you the other evening?"

    "No.  I will to-morrow."

    But Roscoe did not come down-town the next day, nor the next; nor did Sheridan
    see fit to enter his son's house.  He waited.  Then, on the fourth day of the
    month, Roscoe walked into his father's office at nine in the morning, when
    Sheridan happened to be alone.

    "They told me down-stairs you'd left word you wanted to see me."

    "Sit down," said Sheridan, rising.

    Roscoe sat.  His father walked close to him, sniffed suspiciously, and then
    walked away, smiling bitterly.  "Boh!" he exclaimed.  "Still at it!"

    "Yes," said Roscoe.  "I've had a couple of drinks this morning.  What about
    it?"

    "I reckon I better adopt some decent young man," his father returned. "I'd
    bring Bibbs up here and put him in your place if he was fit.  I would!"

    "Better do it," Roscoe assently, sullenly.

    "When 'd you begin this thing?"

    "I always did drink a little.  Ever since I grew up, that is."

    "Leave that talk out!  You know what I mean."

    "Well, I don't know as I ever had too much in office hours--until the other
    day."

    Sheridan began cutting.  "It's a lie.  I've had Ray Wills up from your office.
    He didn't want to give you away, but I put the hooks into him, and he came
    through.  You were drunk twice before and couldn't work.  You been leavin'
    your office for drinks every few hours for the last three weeks.  I been over
    your books.  Your office is way behind.  You haven't done any work, to count,
    in a month."

    "All right," said Roscoe, drooping under the torture.  "It's all true."

    "What you goin' to do about it?"

    Roscoe's head was sunk between his shoulders.  "I can't stand very much talk
    about it, father," he said, pleadingly.

    "No!" Sheridan cried.  "Neither can I!  What do you think it means to ME?" He
    dropped into the chair at his big desk, groaning.  "I can't stand to talk
    about it any more'n you can to listen, but I'm goin' to find out what's the
    matter with you, and I'm goin' to straighten you out!"

    Roscoe shook his head helplessly.

    "You can't straighten me out."

    "See here!" said Sheridan.  "Can you go back to your office and stay sober
    to-day, while I get my work done, or will I have to hire a couple o' huskies
    to follow you around and knock the whiskey out o' your hand if they see you
    tryin' to take it?"

    "You needn't worry about that," said Roscoe, looking up with a faint
    resentment.  "I'm not drinking because I've got a thirst."

    "Well, what have you got?"

    "Nothing.   Nothing you can do anything about.  Nothing, I tell you."

    "We'll see about that!" said Sheridan, harshly.   "Now I can't fool with you
    to-day,  and you get up out o' that chair and get out o' my office. You bring
    your wife to dinner to-morrow.  You didn't come last Sunday-- but you come
    to-morrow.  I'll talk this out with you when the women-folks are workin' the
    phonograph, after dinner.  Can you keep sober till then? You better be sure,
    because I'm going to send Abercrombie down to your office every little while,
    and he'll let me know."

    Roscoe paused at the door.  "You told Abercrombie about it?" he asked.

    "TOLD him!"  And Sheridan laughed hideously.  "Do you suppose there's an
    elevator-boy in the whole dam' building that ain't on to you?"

    Roscoe settled his hat down over his eyes and went out.

    "WHO looks a mustang in the eye? Changety, chang, chang! Bash! Crash! BANG!"

    So sang Bibbs, his musical gaieties inaudible to his fellow-workmen because of
    the noise of the machinery.  He had discovered long ago that the uproar was
    rhythmical, and it had been intolerable; but now, on the afternoon of the
    fourth day of his return, he was accompanying the swing and clash of the
    metals with jubilant vaquero fragments, mingling improvisations of his own
    among them, and mocking the zinc-eater's crash with vocal imitations:

    Fearless and bold, Chang! Bash! Behold! With a leap from the ground To the
    saddle in a bound, And away--and away! Hi-YAY! WHO looks a chang, chang, bash,
    crash, bang! WHO cares a dash how you bash and you crash? NIGHT'S on the way
    EACH time I say, Hi-YAY! Crash, chang! Bash, chang! Chang, bang, BANG!

    The long room was ceaselessly thundering with metallic sound; the air was
    thick with the smell of oil; the floor trembled perpetually; everything was
    implacably in motion--nowhere was there a rest for the dizzied eye. The first
    time he had entered the place Bibbs had become dizzy instantly, and six months
    of it had only added increasing nausea to faintness.  But he felt neither now.
    "ALL DAY LONG I'LL SEND MY THOUGHTS TO YOU.  YOU MUST KEEP REMEMBERING THAT
    YOUR FRIEND STANDS BESIDE YOU."  He saw her there beside him, and the greasy,
    roaring place became suffused with radiance.  The poet was happy in his
    machine-shop; he was still a poet there.  And he fed his old zinc-eater, and
    sang:

    Away--and away! Hi-YAH! Crash, bash, crash, bash, CHANG! Wild are his eyes,
    Fiercely he dies! Hi-YAH! Crash, bash, bang!  Bash, CHANG! Ready to fling Our
    gloves in the ring--

    He was unaware of a sensation that passed along the lines of workmen. Their
    great master had come among them, and they grinned to see him standing with
    Dr. Gurney behind the unconscious Bibbs.  Sheridan nodded to those nearest
    him--he had personal acquaintance with nearly all of them --but he kept his
    attention upon his son.  Bibbs worked steadily, never turning from his
    machine.  Now and then he varied his musical programme with remarks addressed
    to the zinc-eater.

    "Go on, you old crash-basher!  Chew it up!  It's good for you, if you don't
    try to bolt your vittles.  Fletcherize, you pig!  That's right-- YOU'LL never
    get a lump in your gizzard.  Want some more?  Here's a nice, shiny one."

    The words were indistinguishable, but Sheridan inclined his head to Gurney's
    ear and shouted fiercely: "Talkin' to himself!  By George!"

    Gurney laughed reassuringly, and shook his head.

    Bibbs returned to song:

    Chang! Chang, bash, chang! It's I! WHO looks a mustang in the eye? Fearless
    and bo--

    His father grasped him by the arm.  "Here!" he shouted.  "Let ME show you how
    to run a strip through there.  The foreman says you're some better'n you used
    to be, but that's no way to handle--Get out the way and let me show you once."

    "Better be careful," Bibbs warned him, stepping to one side.

    "Careful?  Boh!"  Sheridan seized a strip of zinc from the box.  "What you
    talkin' to yourself about?  Tryin' to make yourself think you're so abused
    you're goin' wrong in the head?"

    "'Abused'?  No!" shouted Bibbs.  "I was SINGING--because I 'like it'!  I told
    you I'd come back and 'like it.'"

    Sheridan may not have understood.  At all events, he made no reply, but began
    to run the strip of zinc through the machine.  He did it awkwardly --and with
    bad results.

    "Here!" he shouted.  "This is the way.  Watch how I do it.  There's nothin' to
    it, if you put your mind on it."  By his own showing then his mind was not
    upon it.  He continued to talk.  "All you got to look out for is to keep it
    pressed over to--"

    "Don't run your hand up with it," Bibbs vociferated, leaning toward him.

    "Run nothin'!  You GOT to--"

    "Look out!" shouted Bibbs and Gurney together, and they both sprang forward.
    But Sheridan's right hand had followed the strip too far, and the zinc-eater
    had bitten off the tips of the first and second fingers. He swore vehemently,
    and wrung his hand, sending a shower of red drops over himself and Bibbs, but
    Gurney grasped his wrist, and said, sharply:

    "Come out of here.  Come over to the lavatory in the office.  Bibbs, fetch my
    bag.  It's in my machine, outside."

    And when Bibbs brought the bag to the washroom he found the doctor still
    grasping Sheridan's wrist, holding the injured hand over a basin. Sheridan had
    lost color, and temper, too.  He glared over his shoulder at his son as the
    latter handed the bag to Gurney.

    "You go on back to your work," he said.  "I've had worse snips than that from
    a pencil-sharpener."

    "Oh no, you haven't!" said Gurney.

    "I have, too!" Sheridan retorted, angrily.  "Bibbs, you go on back to your
    work.  There's no reason to stand around here watchin' ole Doc Gurney tryin'
    to keep himself awake workin' on a scratch that only needs a little
    court-plaster.  I slipped, or it wouldn't happened.  You get back on your
    job."

    "All right," said Bibbs.

    "HERE!"  Sheridan bellowed, as his son was passing out of the door.  "You
    watch out when you're runnin' that machine!  You hear what I say?  I slipped,
    or I wouldn't got scratched, but you--YOU'RE liable to get your whole hand cut
    off!  You keep your eyes open!"

    "Yes, sir."  And Bibbs returned to the zinc-eater thoughtfully.

    Half an hour later, Gurney touched him on the shoulder and beckoned him
    outside, where conversation was possible.  "I sent him home, Bibbs.  He'll
    have to be careful of that hand.  Go get your overalls off.  I'll take you for
    a drive and leave you at home."

    "Can't," said Bibbs.  "Got to stick to my job till the whistle blows."

    "No, you don't," the doctor returned, smothering a yawn.  "He wants me to take
    you down to my office and give you an overhauling to see how much harm these
    four days on the machine have done you.  I guess you folks have got that old
    man pretty thoroughly upset, between you, up at your house! But I don't need
    to go over you.  I can see with my eyes half shut--"

    "Yes," Bibbs interrupted, "that's what they are."

    "I say I can see you're starting out, at least, in good shape.  What's made
    the difference?"

    "I like the machine," said Bibbs.  "I've made a friend of it.  I serenade it
    and talk to it, and then it talks back to me."

    "Indeed, indeed?  What does it say?"

    "What I want to hear."

    "Well, well!"  The doctor stretched himself and stamped his foot repeatedly.
    "Better come along and take a drive with me.  You can take the time off that
    he allowed for the examination, and--"

    "Not at all," said Bibbs.  "I'm going to stand by my old zinc-eater till five
    o'clock.  I tell you I LIKE it!"

    "Then I suppose that's the end of your wanting to write."

    "I don't know about that," Bibbs said, thoughtfully; "but the zinc-eater
    doesn't interfere with my thinking, at least.  It's better than being in
    business; I'm sure of that.  I don't want anything to change.  I'd be content
    to lead just the life I'm leading now to the end of my days."

    "You do beat the devil!" exclaimed Gurney.  "Your father's right when he tells
    me you're a mystery.  Perhaps the Almighty knew what He was doing when He made
    you, but it takes a lot of faith to believe it!  Well, I'm off.  Go on back to
    your murdering old machine."  He climbed into his car, which he operated
    himself, but he refrained from setting it immediately in motion.  "Well, I
    rubbed it in on the old man that you had warned him not to slide his hand
    along too far, and that he got hurt because he didn't pay attention to your
    warning, and because he was trying to show you how to do something you were
    already doing a great deal better than he could. You tell him I'll be around
    to look at it and change the dressing to-morrow morning.  Good-by."

    But when he paid the promised visit, the next morning, he did more than change
    the dressing upon the damaged hand.  The injury was severe of its kind, and
    Gurney spent a long time over it, though Sheridan was rebellious and scornful,
    being brought to a degree of tractability only by means of horrible threats
    and talk of amputation.  However, he appeared at the dinner-table with his
    hand supported in a sling, which he seemed to regard as an indignity, while
    the natural inquiries upon the subject evidently struck him as deliberate
    insults.  Mrs. Sheridan, having been unable to contain her solicitude several
    times during the day, and having been checked each time in a manner that
    blanched her cheek, hastened to warn Roscoe and Sibyl, upon their arrival at
    five, to omit any reference to the injury and to avoid even looking at the
    sling if they possibly could.

    The Sheridans dined on Sundays at five.  Sibyl had taken pains not to arrive
    either before or after the hand was precisely on the hour; and the members of
    the family were all seated at the table within two minutes after she and
    Roscoe had entered the house.

    It was a glum gathering, overhung with portents.  The air seemed charged,
    awaiting any tiny ignition to explode; and Mrs. Sheridan's expression, as she
    sat with her eyes fixed almost continually upon her husband, was that of a
    person engaged in prayer.  Edith was pale and intent.  Roscoe looked ill;
    Sibyl looked ill; and Sheridan looked both ill and explosive.  Bibbs had more
    color than any of these, and there was a strange brightness, like a light,
    upon his face.  It was curious to see anything so happy in the tense gloom of
    that household.

    Edith ate little, but gazed nearly all the time at her plate.  She never once
    looked at Sibyl, though Sibyl now and then gave her a quick glance, heavily
    charged, and then looked away.  Roscoe ate nothing, and, like Edith, kept his
    eyes upon his plate and made believe to occupy himself with the viands
    thereon, loading his fork frequently, but not lifting it to his mouth. He did
    not once look at his father, though his father gazed heavily at him most of
    the time.  And between Edith and Sibyl, and between Roscoe and his father,
    some bitter wireless communication seemed continually to be taking place
    throughout the long silences prevailing during this enlivening ceremony of
    Sabbath refection.

    "Didn't you go to church this morning, Bibbs?" his mother asked, in the effort
    to break up one of those ghastly intervals.

    "What did you say, mother?"

    "Didn't you go to church this morning?"

    "I think so," he answered, as from a roseate trance.

    "You THINK so!  Don't you know?"

    "Oh yes.  Yes, I went to church!"

    "Which one?"

    "Just down the street.  It's brick."

    "What was the sermon about?"

    "What, mother?"

    "Can't you hear me?" she cried.  "I asked you what the sermon was about?"

    He roused himself.  "I think it was about--"  He frowned, seeming to
    concentrate his will to recollect.  "I think it was about something in the
    Bible."

    White-jacket George was glad of an opportunity to leave the room and lean upon
    Mist' Jackson's shoulder in the pantry.  "He don't know they WAS any suhmon!"
    he concluded, having narrated the dining-room dialogue.  "All he know is he
    was with 'at lady lives nex' do'!"  George was right.

    "Did you go to church all by yourself, Bibbs?" Sibyl asked.

    "No," he answered.  "No, I didn't go alone."

    "Oh?"  Sibyl gave the ejaculation an upward twist, as of mocking inquiry, and
    followed it by another, expressive of hilarious comprehension.  "OH!"

    Bibbs looked at her studiously, but she spoke no further.  And that completed
    the conversation at the lugubrious feast.

    Coffee came finally, was disposed of quickly, and the party dispersed to other
    parts of the house.  Bibbs followed his father and Roscoe into the library,
    but was not well received.

    "YOU go and listen to the phonograph with the women-folks," Sheridan
    commanded.

    Bibbs retreated.  "Sometimes you do seem to be a hard sort of man!" he said.

    However, he went obediently to the gilt-and-brocade room in which his mother
    and his sister and his sister-in-law had helplessly withdrawn, according to
    their Sabbatical custom.  Edith sat in a corner, tapping her feet together and
    looking at them; Sibyl sat in the center of the room, examining a brooch which
    she had detached from her throat; and Mrs. Sheridan was looking over a
    collection of records consisting exclusively of Caruso and rag-time.  She
    selected one of the latter, remarking that she thought it "right pretty," and
    followed it with one of the former and the same remark.

    As the second reached its conclusion, George appeared in the broad doorway,
    seeming to have an errand there, but he did not speak.  Instead, he favored
    Edith with a benevolent smile, and she immediately left the room, George
    stepping aside for her to precede him, and then disappearing after her in the
    hall with an air of successful diplomacy.  He made it perfectly clear that
    Edith had given him secret instructions and that it had been his pride and
    pleasure to fulfil them to the letter.

    Sibyl stiffened in her chair; her lips parted, and she watched with curious
    eyes the vanishing back of the white jacket.

    "What's that?" she asked, in a low voice, but sharply.

    "Here's another right pretty record," said Mrs. Sheridan, affecting-- with
    patent nervousness--not to hear.  And she unloosed the music.

    Sibyl bit her lip and began to tap her chin with the brooch.  After a little
    while she turned to Bibbs, who reposed at half-length in a gold chair, with
    his eyes closed.

    "Where did Edith go?" she asked, curiously.

    "Edith?" he repeated, opening his eyes blankly.  "Is she gone?"

    Sibyl got up and stood in the doorway.  She leaned against the casing, still
    tapping her chin with the brooch.  Her eyes were dilating; she was suddenly at
    high tension, and her expression had become one of sharp excitement.  She
    listens intently.

    When the record was spun out she could hear Sheridan rumbling in the library,
    during the ensuing silence, and Roscoe's voice, querulous and husky; "I won't
    say anything at all.  I tell you, you might just as well let me alone!"

    But there were other sound: a rustling and murmur, whispering, low protesting
    cadences in a male voice.  And as Mrs. Sheridan started another record, a
    sudden, vital resolve leaped like fire in the eyes of Sibyl. She walked down
    the hall and straight into the smoking-room.

    Lamhorn and Edith both sprang to their feet, separating.  Edith became
    instantly deathly white with a rage that set her shaking from head to foot,
    and Lamhorn stuttered as he tried to speak.

    But Edith's shaking was not so violent as Sibyl's, nor was her face so white.
    At sight of them and of their embrace, all possible consequences became
    nothing to Sibyl.  She courtesied, holding up her skirts and contorting her
    lips to the semblance of a smile.

    "Sit just as you were--both of you!" she said.  And then to Edith: "Did you
    tell my husband I had been telephoning to Lamhorn?"

    "You march out of here!" said Edith, fiercely.  "March straight out of here!"

    Sibyl leveled a forefinger at Lamhorn.

    "Did you tell her I'd been telphoning you I wanted you to come?"

    "Oh, good God!" Lamhorn said.  "Hush!"

    "You knew she'd tell my husband, DIDN'T you?" she cried.  "You knew that!"

    "HUSH!" he begged, panic-stricken.

    "That was a MANLY thing to do!  Oh, it was like a gentleman!  You wouldn't
    come--you wouldn't even come for five minutes to hear what I had to say! You
    were TIRED of what I had to say!  You'd heard it all a thousand times before,
    and you wouldn't come!  No! No! NO!" she stormed.  "You wouldn't even come for
    five minutes, but you could tell that little cat!  And SHE told my husband!
    You're a MAN!"

    Edith saw in a flash that the consequences of battle would be ruinous to
    Sibyl, and the furious girl needed no further temptation to give way to her
    feelings.  "Get out of this house!" she shrieked.  "This is my father's house.
    Don't you dare speak to Robert like that!"

    "No! No!  I mustn't SPEAK--"

    "Don't you DARE!"

    Edith and Sibyl began to scream insults at each other simultaneously, fronting
    each other, their furious faces close.  Their voices shrilled and rose and
    cracked--they screeched.  They could be heard over the noise of the
    phonograph, which was playing a brass-band selection.  They could be heard all
    over the house.  They were heard in the kitchen; they could have been heard in
    the cellar.  Neither of them cared for that.

    "You told my husband!" screamed Sibyl, bringing her face still closer to
    Edith's.  "You told my husband!  This man put THAT in you hands to strike me
    with!  HE did!"

    "I'll tell your husband again!  I'll tell him everything I know!  It's TIME
    your husband--"

    They were swept asunder by a bandaged hand.  "Do you want the neighbors in?"
    Sheridan thundered.

    There fell a shocking silence.  Frenzied Sibyl saw her husband and his mother
    in the doorway, and she understood what she had done.  She moved slowly toward
    the door; then suddenly she began to run.  She ran into the hall, and through
    it, and out of the house.  Roscoe followed her heavily, his eyes on the
    ground.

    "NOW THEN!" said Sheridan to Lamhorn.

    The words were indefinite, but the voice was not.  Neither was the vicious
    gesture of the bandaged hand, which concluded its orbit in the direction of
    the door in a manner sufficient for the swift dispersal of George and Jackson
    and several female servants who hovered behind Mrs. Sheridan. They fled
    lightly.

    "Papa, papa!" wailed Mrs. Sheridan.  "Look at your hand!  You'd oughtn't to
    been so rough with Edie; you hurt your hand on her shoulder.  Look!"

    There was, in fact, a spreading red stain upon the bandages at the tips of the
    fingers, and Sheridan put his hand back in the sling.  "Now then!" he
    repeated.  "You goin' to leave my house?"

    "He will NOT!" sobbed Edith.  "Don't you DARE order him out!"

    "Don't you bother, dear," said Lamhorn, quietly.  "He doesn't understand. YOU
    mustn't be troubled."  Pallor was becoming to him; he looked very handsome,
    and as he left the room he seemed in the girl's distraught eyes a persecuted
    noble, indifferent to the rabble yawping insult at his heels --the rabble
    being enacted by her father.

    "Don't come back, either!" said, Sheridan, realistic in this impersonation.
    "Keep off the premises!" he called savagely into the hall. "This family's
    through with you!"

    "It is NOT!" Edith cried, breaking from her mother.  "You'll SEE about that!
    You'll find out!  You'll find out what 'll happen!  What's HE done? I guess if
    I can stand it, it's none of YOUR business, is it?  What's HE done, I'd like
    to know?  You don't know anything about it.  Don't you s'pose he told ME?  She
    was crazy about him soon as he began going there, and he flirted with her a
    little.  That's everything he did, and it was before he met ME!  After that he
    wouldn't, and it wasn't anything, anyway --he never was serious a minute about
    it.  SHE wanted it to be serious, and she was bound she wouldn't give him up.
    He told her long ago he cared about me, but she kept persecuting him and--"

    "Yes," said Sheridan, sternly; "that's HIS side of it!  That 'll do!  He
    doesn't come in this house again!"

    "You look out!" Edith cried.

    "Yes, I'll look out!  I'd 'a' told you to-day he wasn't to be allowed on the
    premises, but I had other things on my mind.  I had Abercrombie look up this
    young man privately, and he's no 'count.  He's no 'count on earth! He's no
    good!  He's NOTHIN'!  But it wouldn't matter if he was George Washington,
    after what's happened and what I've heard to-night!"

    "But, papa," Mrs. Sheridan began, "if Edie says it was all Sibyl's fault,
    makin' up to him, and he never encouraged her much, nor--"

    "'S enough!" he roared.  "He keeps off these premises!  And if any of you so
    much as ever speak his name to me again--"

    But Edith screamed, clapping her hands over her ears to shut out the sound of
    his voice, and ran up-stairs, sobbing loudly, followed by her mother. However,
    Mrs. Sheridan descended a few minutes later and joined her husband in the
    library.  Bibbs, still sitting in his gold chair, saw her pass, roused himself
    from reverie, and strolled in after her.

    "She locked her door," said Mrs. Sheridan, shaking her head woefully. "She
    wouldn't even answer me.  They wasn't a sound from her room."

    "Well," said her husband, "she can settle her mind to it.  She never speaks to
    that fellow again, and if he tries to telephone her to-morrow-- Here!  You
    tell the help if he calls up to ring off and say it's my orders.  No, you
    needn't.  I'll tell 'em myself."

    "Better not," said Bibbs, gently.

    His father glared at him.

    "It's no good," said Bibbs.  "Mother, when you were in love with father --"

    "My goodness!" she cried.  "You ain't a-goin' to compare your father to
    that--"

    "Edith feels about him just what you did about father," said Bibbs.  "And if
    YOUR father had told you--"

    "I won't LISTEN to such silly talk!" she declared, angrily.

    "So you're handin' out your advice, are you, Bibbs?" said Sheridan.  "What is
    it?"

    "Let her see him all she wants."

    "You're a--"  Sheridan gave it up.  "I don't know what to call you!"

    "Let her see him all she wants," Bibbs repeated, thoughtfully.  "You're up
    against something too strong for you.  If Edith were a weakling you'd have a
    chance this way, but she isn't.  She's got a lot of your determination,
    father, and with what's going on inside of her she'll beat you.  You can't
    keep her from seeing him, as long as she feels about him the way she does now.
    You can't make her think less of him, either.  Nobody can.  Your only chance
    is that she'll do it for herself, and if you give her time and go easy she
    probably will.  Marriage would do it for her quickest, but that's just what
    you don't want, and as you DON'T want it, you'd better --"

    "I can't stand any more!" Sheridan burst out.  "If it's come to BIBBS advisin'
    me how to run this house I better resign.  Mamma, where's that nigger George?
    Maybe HE'S got some plan how I better manage my family. Bibbs, for God's sake
    go and lay down!  'Let her see him all she wants'! Oh, Lord! here's wisdom;
    here's--"

    "Bibbs," said Mrs. Sheridan, "if you haven't got anything to do, you might
    step over and take Sibyl's wraps home--she left 'em in the hall.  I don't
    think you seem to quiet your poor father very much just now."

    "All right."  And Bibbs bore Sibyl's wraps across the street and delivered
    them to Roscoe, who met him at the door.  Bibbs said only, "Forgot these,"
    and, "Good night, Roscoe," cordially and cheerfully, and returned to the New
    House.  His mother and father were still talking in the library, but with
    discretion he passed rapidly on and upward to his own room, and there he
    proceeded to write in his note-book.

           There seems to be another curious thing about Love [Bibbs wrote].
           Love is blind while it lives and only opens its eyes and becomes
           very wide awake when it dies.  Let it alone until then.

           You cannot reason with love or with any other passion.  The wise
           will not wish for love--nor for ambition.  These are passions
           and bring others in their train--hatreds and jealousies--all
           blind.  Friendship and a quiet heart for the wise.

           What a turbulence is love!  It is dangerous for a blind thing to be
           turbulent; there are precipices in life.  One would not cross a
           mountain-pass with a thick cloth over his eyes.  Lovers do.  Friendship
           walks gently and with open eyes.

           To walk to church with a friend!  To sit beside her there! To rise when
           she rises, and to touch with one's thumb and fingers the other half of
           the hymn-book that she holds!  What  lover, with his fierce ways,
           could know this transcendent happiness?

           Friendship brings everything that heaven could bring.  There is no
           labor that cannot become a living rapture if you know that a
           friend is thinking of you as you labor.  So you sing at your work.
           For the work is part of the thoughts of your friend; so you love
           it!

           Love is demanding and claiming and insistent.  Friendship is all
           kindness--it makes the world glorious with kindness.  What color
           you see when you walk with a friend!  You see that the gray sky
           is brilliant and shimmering; you see that the smoke has warm
           browns and is marvelously sculptured--the air becomes
           iridescent.  You see the gold in brown hair. Light floods
           everything.

           When you walk to church with a friend you know that life can give you
           nothing richer.  You pray that there will be no change in anything
           for ever.

           What an adorable thing it is to discover a little foible in your
           friend, a bit of vanity that gives you one thing more about her to
           adore!  On a cold morning she will perhaps walk to church with you
           without her furs, and she will blush and return an evasive answer
           when you ask her why she does not wear them.  You will say no
           more, because you understand.  She looks beautiful in her furs;
           you love their darkness against her cheek; but you comprehend that
           they conceal the loveliness of her throat and the fine line of her
           chin, and that she also has comprehended this, and, wishing to
           look still more bewitching, discards her furs at the risk of
           taking cold.  So you hold your peace, and try to look as if you
           had not thought it out.

           This theory is satisfactory except that it does not account for
           the absence of the muff.  Ah, well, there must always be a mystery
           somewhere!  Mystery is a part of enchantment.

           Manual labor is best.  Your heart can sing and your mind can dream
           while your hands are working.  You could not have a singing heart
           and a dreaming mind  all day if you had to scheme out dollars, or
           if you had to add columns of figures.  Those things take your
           attention.  You cannot be thinking of your friend while you write
           letters beginning "Yours of the 17th inst. rec'd and contents duly
           noted."  But to work with your hands all day, thinking and
           singing, and then, after nightfall, to hear the ineffable kindness
           of your friend's greeting--always there--for you!  Who would
           wake from such a dream as this?

           Dawn and the sea--music in moonlit gardens--nightingales
           serenading through almond-groves in bloom--what could bring such
           things into the city's turmoil?  Yet they are here, and roses
           blossom in the soot.  That is what it means not to be alone!  That
           is what a friend gives you!

    Having thus demonstrated that he was about twenty-five and had formed a
    somewhat indefinite definition of friendship, but one entirely his own (and
    perhaps Mary's) Bibbs went to bed, and was the only Sheridan to sleep soundly
    through the night and to wake at dawn with a light heart.

    His cheerfulness was vaguely diminished by the troublous state of affairs of
    his family.  He had recognized his condition when he wrote, "Who would wake
    from such a dream as this?"  Bibbs was a sympathetic person, easily touched,
    but he was indeed living in a dream, and all things outside of it were veiled
    and remote--for that is the way of youth in a dream.  And Bibbs, who had never
    before been of any age, either old or young, had come to his youth at last.

    He went whistling from the house before even his father had come down-stairs.
    There was a fog outdoors, saturated with a fine powder of soot, and though
    Bibbs noticed absently the dim shape of an automobile at the curb before
    Roscoe's house, he did not recognize it as Dr. Gurney's, but went cheerily on
    his way through the dingy mist.  And when he was once more installed beside
    his faithful zinc-eater he whistled and sang to it, as other workmen did to
    their own machines sometimes, when things went well.  His comrades in the shop
    glanced at him amusedly now and then. They liked him, and he ate his lunch at
    noon with a group of Socialists who approved of his ideas and talked of
    electing him to their association.

    The short days of the year had come, and it was dark before the whistles blew.
    When the signal came, Bibbs went to the office, where he divested himself of
    his overalls--his single divergence from the routine of his
    fellow-workmen--and after that he used soap and water copiously.  This was his
    transformation scene: he passed into the office a rather frail young
    working-man noticeably begrimed, and passed out of it to the pavement a
    cheerfully pre-occupied sample of gentry, fastidious to the point of elegance.

    The sidewalk was crowded with the bearers of dinner-pails, men and boys and
    women and girls from the work-rooms that closed at five.  Many hurried and
    some loitered; they went both east and west, jostling one another, and Bibbs,
    turning his face homeward, was forced to go slowly.

    Coming toward him, as slowly, through the crowd, a tall girl caught sight of
    his long, thin figure and stood still until he had almost passed her, for in
    the thick crowd and the thicker gloom he did not recognize her, though his
    shoulder actually touched hers.  He would have gone by, but she laughed
    delightedly; and he stopped short, startled.  Two boys, one chasing the other,
    swept between them, and Bibbs stood still, peering about him in deep
    perplexity.  She leaned toward him.

    "I knew YOU!" she said.

    "Good heavens!' cried Bibbs.  "I thouhgt it was your voice coming out of a
    star!"

    "There's only smoke overhead," said Mary, and laughed again. "There aren't any
    stars."

    "Oh yes, there were--when you laughed!"

    She took his arm, and they went on.  "I've come to walk home with you, Bibbs.
    I wanted to."

    "But were you here in the--"

    "In the dark?  Yes!  Waiting?  Yes!"

    Bibbs was radiant; he felt suffocated with happiness.  He began to scold her.

    "But it's not safe, and I'm not worth it.  You shouldn't have--You ought to
    know better.  What did--"

    "I only waited about twelve seconds," she laughed.  "I'd just got here."

    "But to come all this way and to this part of town in the dark, you--"

    "I was in this part of town already," she said.  "At least, I was only seven
    or eight blocks away, and it was dark when I came out, and I'd have had to go
    home alone--and I preferred going home with you."

    "It's pretty beautiful for me," said Bibbs, with a deep breath.  "You'll never
    know what it was to hear your laugh in the darkness--and then to --to see you
    standing there! Oh, it was kike--it was like--How can I TELL you what it was
    like?"  They had passed beyond the crowd now, and a crossing-lamp shone upon
    them, which revealed the fact that again she was without her furs.  Here was a
    puzzle.  Why did that adorable little vanity of hers bring her out without
    them in the DARK?  But of course she had gone out long before dark.  For
    undefinable reasons this explanation was not quite satisfactory; however,
    allowing it to stand, his solicitude for her took another turn.  "I think you
    ought to have a car," he said, "especially when you want to be out after dark.
    You need one in winter, anyhow.  Have you ever asked your father for one?"

    "No," said Mary.  "I don't think I'd care for one particularly."

    "I wish you would."  Bibbs's tone was earnest and troubled.  "I think in
    winter you--"

    "No, no," she interrupted, lightly.  "I don't need--"

    "But my mother tried to insist on sending one over here every afternoon for
    me.  I wouldn't let her, because I like the walk, but a girl--"

    "A girl likes to walk, too," said Mary.  "Let me tell you where I've been this
    afternoon and how I happened to be near enought to make you take me home.
    I've been to see a little old man who makes pictures of the smoke. He has a
    sort of warehouse for a studio, and he lives there with his mother and his
    wife and their seven children, and he's gloriously happy. I'd seen one of his
    pictures at an exhibition, and I wanted to see more of them, so he showed them
    to me.  He has almost everthing he ever painted; I don't suppose he's sold
    more than four or five pictures in his life.  He gives drawing-lessons to keep
    alive."

    "How do you mean he paints the smoke?" Bibbs asked.

    "Literally.  He paints from his studio window and from the street-- anywhere.
    He just paints what's around him--and it's beautiful."

    "The smoke?"

    "Wonderful!  He sees the sky through it, somehow.  He does the ugly roofs of
    cheap houses through a haze of smoke, and he does smoky sunsets and smoky
    sunrises, and he has other things with the heavy, solid, slow columns of smoke
    going far out and growing more ethereal and mixing with the hazy light in the
    distance; and he has others with the broken sky-line of down-town, all misted
    with the smoke and puffs and jets of vapor that have colors like an orchard in
    mid-April.  I'm going to take you there some Sunday afternoon, Bibbs."

    "You're showing me the town," he said.  "I didn't know what was in it at all."

    "There are workers in beauty here," she told him, gently.  "There are other
    painters more prosperous than my friend.  There are all sorts of things."

    "I didn't know."

    "No.  Since the town began growing so great that it called itself 'greater,'
    one could live here all one's life and know only the side of it that shows."

    "The beauty-workers seem buried very deep," said Bibbs.  "And I imagine that
    your friend who makes the smoke beautiful must be buried deepest of all.  My
    father loves the smoke, but I can't imagine his buying one of your friend's
    pictures.  He'd buy the 'Bay of Naples," but he wouldn't get one of those.
    He'd think smoke in a picture was horrible--unless he could use it for an
    advertisement."

    "Yes," she said, thoughtfully.  "And really he's the town.  They ARE buried
    pretty deep, it seems, sometimes, Bibbs."

    "And yet it's all wonderful," he said.  "It's wonderful to me."

    "You mean the town is wonderful to you?"

    "Yes, because everything is, since you called me your friend.  The city is
    only a rumble on the horizon for me.  It can't come any closer than the
    horizon so long as you let me see you standing by my old zinc-eater all day
    long, helping me.  Mary--"  He stopped with a gasp.  "That's the first time
    I've called you 'Mary'!"

    "Yes."  She laughed, a little tremuously.  "Though I wanted you to!"

    "I said it without thinking.  It must be because you came there to walk home
    with me.  That must be it."     "Women like to have things said," Mary
    informed him, her tremulous laughter continuing.  "Were you glad I came for
    you?"

    "No--not 'glad.'  I felt as if I were being carried straight up and up and
    up--over the clouds.  I feel like that still.  I think I'm that way most of
    the time.  I wonder what I was like before I knew you.  The person I was then
    seems to have been somebody else, not Bibbs Sheridan at all. It seems long,
    long ago.  I was gloomy and sickly--somebody else-- somebody I don't
    understand now, a coward afraid of shadows--afraid of things that didn't
    exist--afraid of my old zinc-eater!  And now I'm only afraid of what might
    change anything."

    She was silent a moment, and then, "You're happy, Bibbs?" she asked.

    "Ah, don't you see?" he cried.  "I want it to last for a thousand, thousand
    years, just as it is!  You've made me so rich, I'm a miser.  I wouldn't have
    one thing different--nothing, nothing!"

    "Dear Bibbs!" she said, and laughed happily.

    Bibbs continued to live in the shelter of his dream.  He had told Edith, after
    his ineffective effort to be useful in her affairs, that he had decided that
    he was "a member of the family"; but he appeared to have relapsed to the
    retired list after that one attempt at participancy--he was far enough
    detached from membership now.  These were turbulent days in the New House, but
    Bibbs had no part whatever in the turbulence--he seemed an absent-minded
    stranger, present by accident and not wholly aware that he was present.  He
    would sit, faintly smiling over pleasant imaginings and dear reminiscences of
    his own, while battle raged between Edith and her father, or while Sheridan
    unloosed jeremiads upon the sullen Roscoe, who drank heavily to endure them.
    The happy dreamer wandered into storm-areas like a somnambulist, and wandered
    out again unawakened.  He was sorry for his father and for Roscoe, and for
    Edith and for Sibyl, but their sufferings and outcries seemed far away.

    Sibyl was under Gurney's care.  Roscoe had sent for him on Sunday night, not
    long after Bibbs returned the abandoned wraps; and during the first days of
    Sibyl's illness the doctor found it necessary to be with her frequently, and
    to install a muscular nurse.  And whether he would or no, Gurney received from
    his hysterical patient a variety of pungent information which would have
    staggered anybody but a family physician. Among other things he was given to
    comprehend the change in Bibbs, and why the zinc-eater was not putting a lump
    in the operator's gizzard as of yore.

    Sibyl was not delirious--she was a thin little ego writhing and shrieking in
    pain.  Life had hurt her, and had driven her into hurting herself; her
    condition was only the adult's terrible exaggeration of that of a child after
    a bad bruise--there must be screaming and telling mother all about the hurt
    and how it happened.  Sibyl babbled herself hoarse when Gurney withheld
    morphine.  She went from the beginning to the end in a breath.  No protest
    stopped her; nothing stopped her.

    "You ought to let me die!" she wailed.  "It's cruel not to let me die! What
    harm have I ever done to anybody that you want to keep me alive? Just look at
    my life!  I only married Roscoe to get away from home, and look what that got
    me into!--look where I am now!  He brought me to this town, and what did I
    have in my life but his FAMILY?  And they didn't even know the right crowd!
    If they had, it might have been SOMETHING!  I had nothing--nothing--nothing in
    the world!  I wanted to have a good time --and how could I?  Where's any good
    time among these Sheridans?  They never even had wine on the table!  I thought
    I was marrying into a rich family where I'd meet attractive people I'd read
    about, and travel, and go to dances--and, oh, my Lord! all I got was these
    Sheridans!  I did the best I could; I did, indeed!  Oh, I DID!  I just tried
    to live.  Every woman's got a right to live, some time in her life, I guess!
    Things were just beginning to look brighter--we'd moved up here, and that
    frozen crowd across the street were after Jim for their daughter, and they'd
    have started us with the right people--and then I saw how Edith was getting
    him away from me.  She did it, too!  She got him!  A girl with money can do
    that to a married woman--yes, she can, every time!  And what could I do?  What
    can any woman do in my fix?  I couldn't do ANYTHING but try to stand it--and I
    couldn't stand it!  I went to that icicle--that Vertrees girl--and she could
    have helped me a little, and it wouldn't have hurt her.  It wouldn't have done
    her any harm to help me THAT little! She treated me as if I'd been dirt that
    she wouldn't even take the trouble to sweep out of her house!  Let her WAIT!"
    Sibyl's voice, hoarse from babbling, became no more than a husky whisper,
    though she strove to make it louder.  She struggled half upright, and the
    nurse restrained her. "I'd get up out of this bed to show her she can't do
    such things ot me!  I was absolutely ladylike, and she walked out and left me
    there alone! She'll SEE!  She started after Bibbs before Jim's casket was
    fairly underground, and she thinks she's landed that poor loon--but she'll
    see! She'll see!  If I'm ever able to walk across the street again I'll show
    her how to treat a woman in trouble that comes to her for help!  It wouldn't
    have hurt her any--it wouldn't--it wouldn't.  And Edith needn't have told what
    she told Roscoe--it wouldn't have hurt her to let me alone.  And HE told her I
    bored him--telephoning him I wanted to see him.  He needn't have done it!  He
    needn't--needn't--"  Her voice grew fainter, for that while, with exhaustion,
    though she would go over it all again as soon as her strength returned.  She
    lay panting.  Then, seeing her husband standing disheveled in the doorway,
    "Don't come in, Roscoe," she murmured.  "I don't want to see you."  And as he
    turned away she added, "I'm kind of sorry for you, Roscoe."

    Her antagonist, Edith, was not more coherent in her own wailings, and she had
    the advantage of a mother for listener.  She had also the disadvantage of a
    mother for duenna, and Mrs. Sheridan, under her husband's sharp tutelage,
    proved an effective one.  Edith was reduced to telephoning Lamhorn from shops
    whenever she could juggle her mother into a momentary distraction over a
    counter.

    Edith was incomparably more in love than before Lamhorn's expulsion.  Her
    whole being was nothing but the determination to hurdle everything that
    separated her from him.  She was in a state that could be altered by only the
    lightest and most delicate diplomacy of suggestion, but Sheridan, like legions
    of other parents, intensified her passion and fed it hourly fuel by opposing
    to it an intolerable force.  He swore she should cool, and thus set her on
    fire.

    Edith planned neatly.  She fought hard, every other evening, with her father,
    and kept her bed between times to let him see what his violence had done to
    her.  Then, when the mere sight of her set him to breathing fast, she said
    pitiably that she might bear her trouble better if she went away; it was
    impossible to be in the same town with Lamhorn and not think always of him.
    Perhaps in New York she might forget a little.  She had written to a school
    friend, established quietly with an aunt in apartments--and a month or so of
    theaters and restaurants might bring peace.  Sheridan shouted with relief; he
    gave her a copious cheque, and she left upon a Monday morning, wearing violets
    with her mourning and having kissed everybody good-by except Sibyl and Bibbs.
    She might have kissed Bibbs, but he failed to realize that the day of her
    departure had arrived, and was surprised, on returning from his zinc-eater,
    that evening, to find her gone.  "I suppose they'll be maried ther," he said,
    casually.

    Sheridan, seated, warming his stockinged feet at the fire, jumped up, fuming.
    "Either you go out o' here, or I will, Bibbs!" he snorted.  "I don't want to
    be in the same room with the particular kind of idiot you are!  She's through
    with that riff-raff;  all she needed was to be kept away from him a few weeks,
    and I KEPT her away, and it did the business. For Heaven's sake, go on out o'
    here!"

    Bibbs obeyed the gesture of a hand still bandaged.  And the black silk sling
    was still round Sheridan's neck, but not word of Gurney's and no excruciating
    twinge of pain could keep Sheridan's hand in the sling.  The wounds, slight
    enough originally, had become infected the first time he had dislodged the
    bandages, and healing was long delayed.  Sheridan had the habit of gesture; he
    could not "take time to remember," he said, that he must be careful, and he
    had also a curious indignation with his hurt; he refused to pay it the
    compliment of admitting its existence.

    The Saturday following Edith's departure Gurney came to the Sheridan Building
    to dress the wounds and to have a talk with Sheridan which the doctor felt had
    become necessary.  But he was a little before the appointed time and was
    obliged to wait a few minutes in an anteroom-- there was a directors' meeting
    of some sort in Sheridan's office.  The door was slightly ajar, leaking
    cigar-smoke and oratory, the latter all Sheridan's, and Gurney listened.

    "No, sir; no, sir; no, sir!" he heard the big voice rumbling, and then,
    breaking into thunder, "I tell you NO!  Some o' you men make me sick! You'd
    lose your confidence in Almighty God if a doodle-bug flipped his hind leg at
    you!  You say money's tight all over the country.  Well, what if it is?
    There's no reason for it to be tight, and it's not goin' to keep OUR money
    tight!  You're always runnin' to the woodshed to hide your nickels in a crack
    because some fool newspaper says the market's a little skeery!  You listen to
    every street-corner croaker and then come and set here and try to scare ME out
    of a big thing!  We're IN on this-- understand?  I tell you there never WAS
    better times.  These are good times and big times, and I won't stand for any
    other kind o' talk.  This country's on its feet as it never was before, and
    this city's on its feet and goin' to stay there!"  And Gurney heard a series
    of whacks and thumps upon the desk.  "'Bad times'!" Sheridan vociferated, with
    accompanying thumps.  "Rabbit talk!  These times are glorious, I tell you!
    We're in the promised land, and we're goin' to STAY there!  That's all,
    gentlemen. The loan goes!"

    The directors came forth, flushed and murmurous, and Gurney hastened in. His
    guess was correct:  Sheridan had been thumping the desk with his right hand.
    The physician scolded wearily, making good the fresh damage as best he might;
    and then he said what he had to say on the subject of Roscoe and Sibyl, his
    opinion meeting, as he expected, a warmly hostile reception. But the result of
    this conversation was that by telephonic command Roscoe awaited his father, an
    hour later, in the library at the New House.

    "Gurney says your wife's able to travel," Sheridan said brusquely, as he came
    in.

    "Yes."  Roscoe occupied a deep chair and sat in the dejected attitude which
    had become his habit.  "Yes, she is."

    "Edith had to leave town, and so Sibyl thinks she'll have to, too!"

    "Oh, I wouldn't put it that way," Roscoe protested, drearily.

    "No, I hear YOU wouldn't!"  There was a bitter gibe in the father's voice, and
    he added: "It's a good thing she's goin' abroad--if she'll stay there.  I
    shouldn't think any of us want her here any more--you least of all!"

    "It's no use your talking that way," said Roscoe.  "You won't do any good."

    "Well, when are you comin' back to your office?"  Sheridan used a brisker,
    kinder tone.  "Three weeks since you showed up there at all.  When you goin'
    to be ready to cut out whiskey and all the rest o' the foolishness and start
    in again?  You ought to be able to make up for a lot o' lost time and a lot o'
    spilt milk when that woman takes herself out o' the way and lets you and all
    the rest of us alone."

    "It's no use, father, I tell you.  I know what Gurney was going to say to you.
    I'm not going back to the office.  I'm DONE!"

    "Wait a minute before you talk that way!"  Sheridan began his sentry-go up and
    down the room.  "I suppose you know it's taken two pretty good men about
    sixteen hours a day to set things straight and get 'em runnin' right again,
    down in your office?"

    "They must be good men."  Roscoe nodded indifferently.  "I thought I was doing
    about eight men's work.  I'm glad you found two that could handle it."

    "Look here!  If I worked you it was for your own good.  There are plenty men
    drive harder 'n I do, and--"

    "Yes.  There are some that break down all the other men that work with 'em.
    They either die, or go crazy, or have to quit, and are no use the rest of
    their lives.  The last's my case, I guess--'complicated by domestic
    difficulties'!"

    "You set there and tell me you give up?" Sheridan's voice shook, and so did
    the gesticulating hand which he extended appealingly toward the despondent
    figure.  "Don't do it, Roscoe!  Don't say it!  Say you'll come down there
    again and be a man!  This woman ain't goin' to trouble you any more.  The work
    ain't goin' to hurt you if you haven't got her to worry you, and you can get
    shut o' this nasty whiskey-guzzlin'; it ain't fastened on you yet.  Don't
    say--"

    "It's no use on earth," Roscoe mumbled.  "No use on earth."

    "Look here!  If you want another month's vacation--"

    "I know Gurney told you, so what's the use talking about 'vacations'?"

    "Gurney!"  Sheridan vociferated the name savagely.  "It's Gurney, Gurney,
    Gurney!  Always Gurney!  I don't know what the world's comin' to with
    everybody runnin' around squealin', 'The doctor says this,' and, 'The doctor
    says that'!  It makes me sick!  How's this country expect to get its Work done
    if Gurney and all the other old nanny-goats keep up this blattin'--'Oh, oh!
    Don't lift that stick o' wood; you'll ruin your NERVES!' So he says you got
    'nervous exhaustion induced by overwork and emotional strain.'  They always
    got to stick the Work in if they see a chance!  I reckon you did have the
    'emotional strain,' and that's all's the matter with you.  You'll be over it
    soon's this woman's gone, and Work's the very thing to make you quit frettin'
    about her."

    "Did Gurney tell you I was fit to work?"

    "Shut up!" Sheridan bellowed.  "I'm so sick o' that man's name I feel like
    shootin' anybody that says it to me!"  He fumed and chafed, swearing
    indistinctly, then came and stood before his son.  "Look here; do you think
    you're doin' the square thing by me?  Do you?  How much you worth?"

    "I've got between seven and eight thousand a year clear, of my own, outside
    the salary.  That much is mine whether I work or not."

    "It is?  You could 'a pulled it out without me, I suppose you think, at your
    age?"

    "No. But it's mine, and it's enough."

    "My Lord!  It's about what a Congressman gets, and you want to quit there! I
    suppose you think you'll get the rest when I kick the bucket, and all you have
    to do is lay back and wait!  You let me tell you right here, you'll never see
    one cent of it.  You go out o' business now, and what would you know about
    handlin' it five or ten or twenty years from now? Because I intend to STAY
    here a little while yet, my boy!  They'd either get it away from you or you'd
    sell for a nickel and let it be split up and --"  He whirled about, marched to
    the other end of the room, and stood silent a moment.  Then he said, solomnly:
    "Listen.  If you go out now, you leave me in the lurch, with nothin' on God's
    green earth to depend on but your brother--and you know what he is.  I've
    depended on you for it ALL since Jim died.  Now you've listened to that dam'
    doctor, and he says maybe you won't ever be as good a man as you were, and
    that certainly you won't be for a year or so--probably more.  Now, that's all
    a lie.  Men don't break down that way at your age.  Look at ME!  And I tell
    you, you can shake this thing off.  All you need is a little GET-up and a
    little gumption.  Men don't go away for YEARS and then come back into MOVING
    businesses like ours--they lose the strings.  And if you could, I won't let
    you--if you lay down on me now, I won't--and that's because if you lay down
    you prove you ain't the man I thought you were."  He cleared his throat and
    finished quietly: "Roscoe, will you take a month's vacation and come back and
    go to it?"

    "No," said Roscoe, listlessly.  "I'm through."

    "All right," said Sheridan.  He picked up the evening paper from a table, went
    to a chair by the fire and sat down, his back to his son.  "Good-by."

    Roscoe rose, his head hanging, but there was a dull relief in his eyes. "Best
    I can do," he muttered, seeming about to depart, yet lingering.  "I figure it
    out a good deal like this," he said.  "I didn't KNOW my job was any strain,
    and I managed all right, but from what Gur--from what I hear, I was just up to
    the limit of my nerves from overwork, and the-- the trouble at home was the
    extra strain that's fixed me the way I am.  I tried to brace, so I could stand
    the work and the trouble too, on whiskey --and that put the finish to me!
    I--I'm not hitting it as hard as I was for a while, and I reckon pretty soon,
    if I can get to feeling a little more energy, I better try to quit entirely--I
    don't know.  I'm all in--and the doctor says so.  I thought I was running
    along fine up to a few months ago, but all the time I was ready to bust, and
    didn't know it.  Now, then, I don't want you to blame Sibyl, and if I were you
    I wouldn't speak of her as 'that woman,' because she's your daughter-in-law
    and going to stay that way.  She didn't do anything wicked.  It was a shock to
    me, and I don't deny it, to find what she had done--encouraging that fellow to
    hang around her after he began trying to flirt with her, and losing her head
    over him the way she did.  I don't deny it was a shock and that it 'll always
    be a hurt inside of me I'll never get over.  But it was my fault; I didn't
    understand a woman's nature."  Poor Roscoe spoke in the most profound and
    desolate earnest.  "A woman craves society, and gaiety, and meeting attractive
    people, and traveling.  Well, I can't give her the other things, but I can
    give her the traveling--real traveling, not just going to Atlantic City or New
    Orleans, the way she has, two, three times.  A woman has to have something in
    her life besides a business man.  And that's ALL I was.  I never understood
    till I heard her talking when she was so sick, and I believe if you'd heard
    her then you wouldn't speak so hard-heartedly about her; I believe you might
    have forgiven her like I have.  That's all.  I never cared anything for any
    girl but her in my life, but I was so busy with business I put it ahead of
    her.  I never THOUGHT about her, I was so busy thinking business.  Well, this
    is where it's brought us to--and now when you talk about 'business' to me I
    feel the way you do when anybody talks about Gurney to you.  The word
    'business' makes me dizzy--it makes me honestly sick at the stomach.  I
    believe if I had to go down-town and step inside that office door I'd fall
    down on the floor, deathly sick.  You talk about a 'month's vacation'-- and I
    get just as sick.  I'm rattled--I can't plan--I haven't got any plans--can't
    make any, except to take my girl and get just as far away from that office as
    I can--and stay.  We're going to Japan first, and if we--"

    His father rustled the paper.  "I said good-by, Roscoe."

    "Good-by," said Roscoe, listlessly.

    Sheridan waited until he heard the sound of the outer door closing; then he
    rose and pushed a tiny disk set in the wall.  Jackson appeared.

    "Has Bibbs got home from work?"

    "Mist' Bibbs?  No, suh."

    "Tell him I want to see him, soon as he comes."

    "Yessuh."

    Sheridan returned to his chair and fixed his attention fiercely upon the
    newspaper.  He found it difficult to pursue the items beyond their explanatory
    rubrics--there was nothing unusual or startling to concentrate his attention:

           "Motorman Puts Blame on Brakes.  Three Killed when Car Slides."
           "Burglars Make Big Haul."  "Board Works Approve Big Car-line
           Extension."  "Hold-up Men Injure Two.  Man Found in Alley, Skull
           Fractured."  "Sickening Story Told in Divorce Court."  "Plan New
           Eighteen-story Structure."  "School-girl Meets Death under
           Automobile."  "Negro Cuts Three.  One Dead."  "Life Crushed Out.
           Third Elevator Accident in Same Building Causes Action by
           Coroner."  "Declare Militia will be Menace.  Polish Societies
           Protest to Governor in Church Rioting Case."  "Short $3,500 in
           Accounts, Trusted Man Kills Self with Drug."  "Found Frozen.
           Family Without Food or Fuel.  Baby Dead when Parents Return Home
           from Seeking Work."  "Minister Returned from Trip Abroad Lectures
           on Big Future of Our City.  Sees Big Improvement during Short
           Absence.  Says No European City Holds Candle."
    (Sheridan nodded approvingly here.)

    Bibbs came through the hall whistling, and entered the room briskly. "Well,
    father, did you want me?"

    "Yes.  Sit down."  Sheridan got up, and Bibbs took a seat by the fire, holding
    out his hands to the crackling blaze, for it was cold outdoors.

    "I came within seven of the shop record to-day," he said.  "I handled more
    strips thand any other workman has any day this month.  The nearest to me is
    sixteen behind."

    "There!" exclaimed his father, greatly pleased.  "What'd I tell you?  I'd like
    to hear Gurney hint again that I wasn't right in sending you there-- I would
    just like to hear him!  And you--ain't you ashamed of makin' such a fuss about
    it?  Ain't you?"

    "I didn't go at it in the right spirit the other time," Bibbs said, smiling
    brightly, his face ruddy in the cheerful firelight.  "I didn't know the
    difference it meant to like a thing."

    "Well, I guess I've pretty thoroughly vindicated my judgement.  I guess I
    HAVE!  I said the shop 'd be good for you, and it was.  I said it wouldn't
    hurt you, and it hasn't.  It's been just exactly what I said it would be.
    Ain't that so?"

    "Looks like it!" Bibbs agreed, gaily.

    "Well, I'd like to know any place I been wrong, first and last!  Instead o'
    hurting you, it's been the makin' of you--physically.  You're a good inch
    taller'n what I am, and you'd be a bigger man than what I am if you'd get some
    flesh on your bones; and you ARE gettin' a little.  Physically, it's started
    you out to be the huskiest one o' the whole family.  Now, then,
    mentally--that's different.  I don't say it unkindly, Bibbs, but you got to do
    something for yourself mentally, just like what's begun physically.  And I'm
    goin' to help you."

    Sheridan decided to sit down again.  He brought his chair close to his son's,
    and, leaning over, tapped Bibbs's knee confidentially.  "I got plans for you,
    Bibbs," he said.

    Bibbs instantly looked thoroughly alarmed.  He drew back.  "I--I'm all right
    now, father."

    "Listen."  Sheridan settled himself in his chair, and spoke in the tone of a
    reasonable man reasoning.  "Listen here, Bibbs.  I had another blow to-day,
    and it was a hard one and right in the face, though I HAVE been expectin' it
    some little time back.  Well, it's got to be met.  Now I'll be frank with you.
    As I said a minute ago, mentally I couldn't ever called you exactly strong.
    You been a little weak both ways, most of your life.  Not but what I think you
    GOT a mentality, if you'd learn to use it. You got will-power, I'll say that
    for you.  I never knew boy or man that could be stubborner--never one in my
    life!  Now, then, you've showed you could learn to run that machine best of
    any man in the shop, in no time at all.  That looks to me like you could learn
    to do other things.  I don't deny but what it's an encouragin' sign.  I don't
    deny that, at all.  Well, that helps me to think the case ain't so hopeless as
    it looks.  You're all I got to meet this blow with, but maybe you ain't as
    poor material as I thought.  Your tellin' me about comin' within seven strips
    of the shop's record to-day looks to me like encouragin' information brought
    in at just about the right time.  Now, then, I'm goin' to give you a raise.  I
    wanted to send you straight on up through the shops--a year or two, maybe--
    but I can't do it.  I lost Jim, and now I've lost Roscoe.  He's quit. He's
    laid down on me.  If he ever comes back at all, he'll be a long time pickin'
    up the strings, and, anyway, he ain't the man I thought he was.  I can't count
    on him.  I got to have SOMEBODY I KNOW I can count on.  And I'm down to this:
    you're my last chance.  Bibbs, I got to learn you to use what brains you got
    and see if we can't develop 'em a little.  Who knows? And I'm goin' to put my
    time in on it.  I'm goin' to take you right down-town with ME, and I won't be
    hard on you if you're a little slow at first.  And I'm goin' to do the big
    thing for you.  I'm goin' to make you feel you got to do the big thing for me,
    in return.  I've vindicated my policy with you about the shop, and now I'm
    goin' to turn right around and swing you 'way over ahead of where the other
    boys started, and I'm goin' to make an appeal to your ambition that 'll make
    you dizzy!"  He tapped his son on the knee again.  "Bibbs, I'm goin' to start
    you off this way: I'm goin' to make you a director in the Pump Works Company;
    I'm goin' to make you vice-president of the Realty Company and a
    vice-president of the Trust Company!"

    Bibbs jumped to his feet, blanched.  "Oh no!" he cried.

    Sheridan took his dismay to be the excitement of sudden joy.  "Yes, sir! And
    there's some pretty fat little salaries goes with those vice-presidencies, and
    a pinch o' stock in the Pump Company with the directorship.  You thought I was
    pretty mean about the shop--oh, I know you did!--but you see the old man can
    play it both ways.  And so right now, the minute you've begun to make good the
    way I wanted you to, I deal from the new deck.  And I'll keep on handin' it
    out bigger and bigger every time you show me you're big enough to play the
    hand I deal you.  I'm startin' you with a pretty big one, my boy!"

    "But I don't--I don't--I don't want it!" Bibbs stammered.

    "What 'd you say?"  Sheridan thought he had not heard aright.

    "I don't want it, father.  I thank you--I do thank you--"

    Sheridan looked perplexed.  "What's the matter with you?  Didn't you
    understand what I was tellin' you?"

    "Yes."

    "You sure?  I reckon you didn't.  I offered--"

    "I know, I know!  But I can't take it."

    "What's the matter with you?"  Sheridan was half amazed, half suspicious.
    "Your head feel funny?"

    "I've never been quite so sane in my life," said Bibbs, "as I have lately. And
    I've got just what I want.  I'm living exactly the right life.  I'm earning my
    daily bread, and I'm happy in doing it.  My wages are enough. I don't want any
    more money, and I don't deserve any--"

    "Damnation!"  Sheridan sprang up.  "You've turned Socialist!  You been
    listening to those fellows down there, and you--"

    "No, sir.  I think there's a great deal in what they say, but that isn't it."

    Sheridan tried to restrain his growing fury, and succeeded partially. "Then
    what is it?  What's the matter?"

    "Nothing," he son returned, nervously.  "Nothing--except that I'm content.  I
    don't want to change anything."

    "Why not?"

    Bibbs had the incredible folly to try to explain.  "I'll tell you, father, if
    I can.  I know it may be hard to understand--"

    "Yes, I think it may be," said Sheridan, grimly.  "What you say usually is a
    LITTLE that way.  Go on!"

    Perturbed and distressed, Bibbs rose instinctively; he felt himself at every
    possible disadvantage.  He was a sleeper clinging to a dream--a rough hand
    stretched to shake him and waken him.  He went to a table and made vague
    drawings upon it with a finger, and as he spoke he kept his eyes lowered.
    "You weren't altogether right about the shop--that is, in one way you weren't,
    father."  He glanced up apprehensively.  Sheridan stood facing him,
    expressionless, and made no attempt to interrupt. "That's difficult to
    explain," Bibbs continued, lowering his eyes again, to follow the tracings of
    his finger.  "I--I believe the shop might have done for me this time if I
    hadn't--if something hadn't helped me to-- oh, not only to bear it, but to be
    happy in it.  Well, I AM happy in it. I want to go on just as I am.  And of
    all things on earth that I don't want, I don't want to live a business life--I
    don't want to be drawn into it. I don't think it IS living--and now I AM
    living.  I have the healthful toil--and I can think.  In business as important
    as yours I couldn't think anything but business.  I don't--I don't think
    making money is worth while."

    "Go on," said Sheridan, curtly, as Bibbs paused timidly.

    "It hasn't seemed to get anywhere, that I can see," said Bibbs.  "You think
    this city is rich and powerful--but what's the use of its being rich and
    powerful?  They don't teach the children any more in the schools because the
    city is rich and powerful.  They teach them more than they used to because
    some people--not rich and powerful people--have thought the thoughts to teach
    the children.  And yet when you've been reading the paper I've heard you
    objecting to the children being taught anything except what would help them to
    make money.  You said it was wasting the taxes.  You want them taught to make
    a living, but not to live.  When I was a little boy this wasn't an ugly town;
    now it's hideous. What's the use of being big just to be hideous?  I mean I
    don't think all this has meant really going ahead--it's just been getting
    bigger and dirtier and noisier.  Wasn't the whole country happier and in many
    ways wiser when it was smaller and cleaner and quieter and kinder?  I know you
    think I'm an utter fool, father, but, after all, though, aren't business and
    politics just the housekeeping part of life?  And wouldn't you despise a woman
    that not only made her housekeeping her ambition, but did it so noisily and
    dirtily that the whole neighborhood was in a continual turmoil over it?  And
    supposed she talked and thought about her housekeeping all the time, and was
    always having additions built to her house when she couldn't keep clean what
    she already had; and suppose, with it all, she made the house altogether
    unpeaceful and unlivable--"

    "Just one minute!"  Sheridan interrupted, adding, with terrible courtesy, "If
    you will permit me?  Have you ever been right about anything?"

    "I don't quite--"

    "I ask the simple question: Have you ever been right about anything whatever
    in the course of your life?  Have you ever been right upon any subject or
    question you've thought about and talked about?  Can you mention one single
    time when you were proved to be right?"

    He was flourishing the bandaged hand as he spoke, but Bibbs said only, "If
    I've always been wrong before, surely there's more chance that I'm right about
    this.  It seems reasonable to suppose something would be due to bring up my
    average."

    "Yes, I thought you wouldn't see the point.  And there's another you probably
    couldn't see, but I'll take the liberty to mention it.  You been balkin' all
    your life.  Pretty much everything I ever wanted you to do, you'd let out SOME
    kind of a holler, like you are now--and yet I can't seem to remember once when
    you didn't have to lay down and do what I said. But go on with your remarks
    about our city and the business of this country.  Go on!"

    "I don't want to be a part of it," said Bibbs, with unwonted decision.  "I
    want to keep to myself, and I'm doing it now.  I couldn't, if I went down
    there with you.  I'd be swallowed into it.  I don't care for money enought
    to--"

    "No," his father interrupted, still dangerously quiet.  "You've never had to
    earn a living.  Anybody could tell that by what you say.  Now, let me remind
    you: you're sleepin' in a pretty good bed; you're eatin' pretty fair food;
    you're wearin' pretty fine clothes.  Just suppose one o' these noisy
    housekeepers--me, for instance--decided to let you do your own housekeepin'.
    May I ask what your proposition would be?"

    "I'm earning nine dollars a week," said Bibbs, sturdily.  "It's enough.  I
    shouldn't mind at all."

    "Who's payin' you that nine dollars a week?"

    "My work!" Bibbs answered.  "And I've done so well on that clipping-machine I
    believe I could work up to fifteen or even twenty a week at another job.  I
    could be a fair plumber in a few months, I'm sure. I'd rather have a trade
    than be in business--I should, infinitely!"

    "You better set about learnin' one pretty dam' quick!"  But Sheridan struggled
    with his temper and again was partially successful in controlling it.  "You
    better learn a trade over Sunday, because you're either goin' down with me to
    my office Monday morning--or--you can go to plumbing!"

    "All right," said Bibbs, gently.  "I can get along."

    Sheridan raised his hands sardonically, as in prayer.  "O God," he said, "this
    boy was crazy enough before he began to earn his nine dollars a week, and now
    his money's gone to his head!  Can't You do nothin' for him?"  Then he flung
    his hands apart, palms outward, in a furious gesture of dismissal.  "Get out
    o' this room!  You got a skull that's thicker'n a whale's thigh-bone, but it's
    cracked spang all the way across!  You hated the machine-shop so bad when I
    sent you there, you went and stayed sick for over two years--and now, when I
    offer to take you out of it and give you the mint, you holler for the shop
    like a calf for its mammy!  You're cracked!  Oh, but I got a fine layout here!
    One son died, one quit, and one's a loon!  The loon's all I got left!  H. P.
    Ellersly's wife had a crazy brother, and they undertook to keep him at the
    house.  First morning he was there he walked straight though a ten-dollar
    plate-glass window out into the yard.  He says, 'Oh, look at the pretty
    dandelion!'  That's what you're doin'!  You want to spend your life sayin',
    'Oh, look at the pretty dandelion!' and you don't care a tinker's dam' what
    you bust!  Well, mister, loon or no loon, cracked and crazy or whatever you
    are, I'll take you with me Monday morning, and I'll work you and learn
    you--yes, and I'll lam you, if I got to--until I've made something out of you
    that's fit to be called a business man!  I'll keep at you while I'm able to
    stand, and if I have to lay down to die I'll be whisperin' at you till they
    get the embalmin'-fluid into me!  Now go on, and don't let me hear from you
    again till you can come and tell me you've waked up, you poor, pitiful,
    dandelion-pickin' SLEEP-WALKER!"

    Bibbs gave him a queer look.  There was something like reproach in it, for
    once; but there was more than that--he seemed to be startled by his father's
    last word.

    There was sleet that evening, with a whopping wind, but neither this storm nor
    that other which so imminently threatened him held place in the consciousness
    of Bibbs Sheridan when he came once more to the presence of Mary.  All was
    right in his world has he sat with her, reading Maurice Maeterlinck's Alladine
    and Palomides.  The sorrowful light of the gas-jet might have been May morning
    sunshine flashing amber and rose through the glowing windows of the
    Sainte-Chapelle, it was so bright for Bibbs.  And while the zinc-eater held
    out to bring him such golden nights as these, all the king's horses and all
    the king's men might not serve to break the spell.

    Bibbs read slowly, but in a reasonable manner, as if he were talking; and
    Mary, looking at him steadily from beneath her curved fingers, appeared to
    discover no fault.  It had grown to be her habit to look at him whenever there
    was an opportunity.  It may be said, in truth, that while they were together,
    and it was light, she looked at him all the time.

    When he came to the end of Alladine and Palomides they were silent a little
    while, considering together; then he turned back the pages and said:  "There's
    something I want to read over.  This:

           You would think I threw a window open on the dawn...She has a soul
           that can be seen around her--that takes you in its arms like an
           ailing child and without saying anything to you consoles you for
           everything....  I shall never understand it all.  I do not know
           how it can all be, but my knees bend in spite of me when I speak
           of it ...

    He stopped and looked at her.

    "You boy!" said Mary, not very clearly.

    "Oh yes," he returned.  "But it's true--especially my knees!"

    "You boy!" she murmured again, blushing charmingly.  "You might read another
    line over.  The first time I ever saw you, Bibbs, you were looking into a
    mirror.  Do it again.  But you needn't read it--I can give it to you: "A
    little Greek slave that came from the heart of Arcady!"

    "I!  I'm one of the hands at the Pump Works--and going to stay one, unless I
    have to decide to study plumbing."

    "No."  She shook her head.  "You love and want what's beautiful and delicate
    and serene; it's really art that you want in your life, and have always
    wanted.  You seemed to me, from the first, the most wistful person I had ever
    known, and that's what you were wistful for."

    Bibbs looked doubtful and more wistful than ever; but after a moment or two
    the matter seemed to clarify itself to him.  "Why, no," he said; "I wanted
    something else more than that.  I wanted you."

    "And here I am!" she laughed, completely understanding. "I think we're like
    those two in The Cloister and the Hearth.  I'm just the rough Burgundian
    cross-bow man, Denys, who followed that gentle Gerard and told everybody that
    the devil was dead."

    "He isn't, though," said Bibbs, as a hoarse little bell in the next room began
    a series of snappings which proved to be ten, upon count.  "He gets into the
    clock whenever I'm with you."  And, sighing deeply, he rose to go.

    "You're always very prompt about leaving me."

    "I--I try to be," he said.  "It isn't easy to be careful not to risk
    everything by giving myself a little more at a time.  If I ever saw you look
    tired--"

    "Have you ever?"

    "Not yet.  You always look--you always look--"

    "How?"

    "Care-free.  That's it.  Except when you feel sorry for me about something,
    you always have that splendid look.  It puts courage into people to see it.
    If I had a struggle to face I'd keep remembering that look--and I'd never give
    up!  It's a brave look, too, as though gaiety might be a kind of gallantry on
    your part, and yet I don't quite understand why it should be, either."  He
    smiled quizzically, looking down upon her.  "Mary, you haven't a 'secret
    sorrow,' have you?"

    For answer she only laughed.

    "No," he said; "I can't imagine you with a care in the world.  I think that's
    why you were so kind to me--you have nothing but happiness in your own life,
    and so you could spare time to make my troubles turn to happiness, too.  But
    there's one little time in the twenty-four hours when I'm not happy.  It's
    now, when I have to say good night.  I feel dismal every time it comes--and
    then, when I've left the house, there's a bad little blankness, a black void,
    as though I were temporarily dead; and it lasts until I get it established in
    my mind that I'm really beginning another day that's to end with YOU again.
    Then I cheer up.  But now's the bad time--and I must go through it, and
    so--good night."  And he added with a pungent vehemence of which he was little
    aware, "I hate it!"

    "Do you?" she said, rising to go to the door with him.  But he stood
    motionless, gazing at her wonderingly.

    "Mary!  Your eyes are so--"  He stopped.

    "Yes?"  But she looked quickly away.

    "I don't know," he said.  "I thought just then--"

    "What did you think?"

    "I don't know--it seemed to me that there was something I ought to
    understand--and didn't."

    She laughed and met his wondering gaze again frankly.  "My eyes are pleased,"
    she said.  "I'm glad that you miss me a little after you go."

    "But to-morrow's coming faster than other days if you'll let it," he said.

    She inclined her head.  "Yes.  I'll--'let it'!"

    "Going to church," said Bibbs.  "It IS going to church when I go with you!"

    She went to the front door with him; she always went that far.  They had
    formed a little code of leave-taking, by habit, neither of them ever speaking
    of it; but it was always the same.  She always stood in the doorway until he
    reached the sidewalk, and there he always turned and looked back, and she
    waved her hand to him.  Then he went on, halfway to the New House, and looked
    back again, and Mary was not in the doorway, but the door was open and the
    light shone.  It was as if she meant to tell him that she would never shut him
    out; he could always see that friendly light of the open doorway--as if it
    were open for him to come back, if he would.  He could see it until a wing of
    the New House came between, when he went up the path.  The open doorway seemed
    to him the beautiful symbol of her friendship--of her thought of him; a symbol
    of herself and of her ineffable kindness.

    And she kept the door open--even to-night, though the sleet and fine snow
    swept in upon her bare throat and arms, and her brown hair was strewn with
    tiny white stars.  His heart leaped as he turned and saw that she was there,
    waving her hand to him, as if she did not know that the storm touched her.
    When he had gone on, Mary did as she always did--she went into an unlit room
    across the hall from that in which they had spent the evening, and, looking
    from the window, watched him until he was out of sight.  The storm made that
    difficult to-night, but she caught a glimpse of him under the street-lamp that
    stood between the two houses, and saw that he turned to look back again.
    Then, and not before, she looked at the upper windows of Roscoe's house across
    the street.  They were dark. Mary waited, but after a little while she closed
    the front door and returned to her window.  A moment later two of the upper
    windows of Roscoe's house flashed into light and a hand lowered the shade of
    one of them.  Mary felt the cold then--it was the third night she had seen
    those windows lighted and the shade lowered, just after Bibbs had gone.

    But Bibbs had no glance to spare for Roscoe's windows.  He stopped for his
    last look back at the open door, and, with a thin mantle of white already upon
    his shoulders, made his way, gasping in the wind, to the lee of the sheltering
    wing of the New House.

    A stricken George, muttering hoarsely, admitted him, and Bibbs became aware of
    a paroxysm within the house.  Terrible sounds came from the library: Sheridan
    cursing as never before; his wife sobbing, her voice rising to an agonized
    squeal of protest upon each of a series of muffled detonations-- the
    outrageous thumping of a bandaged hand upon wood;  then Gurney, sharply
    imperious, "Keep your hand in that sling!  Keep your hand in that sling, I
    say!"

    "LOOK!" George gasped, delighted to play herald for so important a tragedy;
    and he renewed upon his face the ghastly expression with which he had first
    beheld the ruins his calamitous gesture laid before the eyes of Bibbs.  "Look
    at 'at lamidal statue!"

    Gazing down the hall, Bibbs saw heroic wreckage, seemingly Byzantine-- painted
    colossal fragments of the shattered torso, appallingly human; and gilded and
    silvered heaps of magnificence strewn among ruinous palms like the spoil of a
    barbarians' battle.  There had been a massacre in the oasis --the Moor had
    been hurled headlong from his pedestal.

    "He hit 'at ole lamidal statue," said George.  "POW!"

    "My father?"

    "YESshu!  POW! he hit 'er!  An' you' ma run tell me git doctuh quick 's I kin
    telefoam--she sho' you' pa goin' bus' a blood-vessel.  He ain't takin' on
    'tall NOW.  He ain't nothin' 'tall to what he was 'while ago. You done miss'
    it, Mist' Bibbs.  Doctuh got him all quiet' down, to what he was.  POW! he hit
    'er!  Yessuh!"  He took Bibbs's coat and proffered a crumpled telegraph form.
    "Here what come," he said.  "I pick 'er up when he done stompin' on 'er.  You
    read 'er, Mist' Bibbs--you' ma tell me tuhn 'er ovuh to you soon's you come
    in."

    Bibbs read the telegram quickly.  It was from New York and addressed to Mrs.
    Sheridan.

           Sure you will all approve step have taken as was so wretched my
           health would probably suffered severely Robert and I were married
           this afternoon thought best have quiet wedding absolutely sure you
           will understand wisdom of step when you know Robert better am
           happiest woman in world are leaving for Florida will wire address
           when settled will remain till spring love to all father will like
           him too when knows him like I do he is just ideal.
           Edith Lamhorn.

    George departed, and Bibbs was left gazing upon chaos and listening to
    thunder.  He could not reach the stairway without passing the open doors of
    the library, and he was convinced that the mere glimpse of him, just then,
    would prove nothing less than insufferable for his father.  For that reason he
    was about to make his escape into the gold-and-brocade room, intending to keep
    out of sight, when he heard Sheridan vociferously demanding his presence.

    "Tell him to come in here!  He's out there.  I heard George just let him in.
    Now you'll SEE!"  And tear-stained Mrs. Sheridan, looking out into the hall,
    beckoned to her son.

    Bibbs went as far as the doorway.  Gurney sat winding a strip of white cotton,
    his black bag open upon a chair near by; and Sheridan was striding up and
    down, his hand so heavily wrapped in fresh bandages that he seemed to be
    wearing a small boxing-glove.  His eyes were bloodshot; his forehead was
    heavily bedewed; one side of his collar had broken loose, and there were
    blood-stains upon his right cuff.

    "THERE'S our little sunshine!" he cried, as Bibbs appeared.  "THERE'S the hope
    o' the family--my lifelong pride and joy!  I want--"

    "Keep you hand in that sling," said Gurney, sharply.

    Sheridan turned upon him, uttering a sound like a howl.  "For God's sake, sing
    another tune!" he cried.  "You said you 'came as a doctor but stay as a
    friend,' and in that capacity you undertake to sit up and criticize ME --"

    "Oh, talk sense," said the doctor, and yawned intentionally.  "What do you
    want Bibbs to say?"

    "You were sittin' up there tellin' me I got 'hysterical'--'hysterical,' oh
    Lord!  You sat up there and told me I got 'hysterical' over nothin'! You sat
    up there tellin' me I didn't have as heavy burdens as many another man you
    knew.  I just want you to hear THIS.  Now listen!"  He swung toward the quiet
    figure waiting in the doorway.  "Bibbs, will you come down-town with me Monday
    morning and let me start you with two vice-presidencies, a directorship,
    stock, and salaries?  I ask you."

    "No, father," said Bibbs, gently.

    Sheridan looked at Gurney and then faced his son once more.

    "Bibbs, you want to stay in the shop, do you, at nine dollars a week, instead
    of takin' up my offer?"

    "Yes, sir."

    "And I'd like the doctor to hear: What 'll you do if I decide you're too
    high-priced a workin'-man either to live in my house or work in my shop?"

    "Find other work," said Bibbs.

    "There!  You hear him for yourself!" Sheridan cried.  "You hear what--"

    "Keep you hand in that sling!  Yes, I hear him."

    Sheridan leaned over Gurney and shouted, in a voice that cracked and broke,
    piping into falsetto: "He thinks of bein' a PLUMBER!  He wants to be a
    PLUMBER!  He told me he couldn't THINK if he went into business--he wants to
    be a plumber so he can THINK!"

    He fell back a step, wiping his forhead with the back of his left hand.
    "There!  That's my son!  That's the only son I got now!  That's my chance to
    live," he cried, with a bitterness that seemed to leave ashes in his throat.
    "That's my one chance to live--that thing you see in the doorway yonder!"

    Dr. Gurney thoughtfully regarded the bandage strip he had been winding, and
    tossed it into the open bag.  "What's the matter with giving Bibbs a chance to
    live?" he said, coolly.  "I would if I were you.  You've had TWO that went
    into business."

    Sheridan's mouth moved grotesquely before he could speak.  "Joe Gurney," he
    said, when he could command himself so far, "are you accusin' me of the
    responsibility for the death of my son James?"

    "I accuse you of nothing," said the doctor.  "But just once I'd like to have
    it out with you on the question of Bibbs--and while he's here, too."  He got
    up, walked to the fire, and stood warming his hands behind his back and
    smiling.  "Look here, old fellow, let's be reasonable," he said.  "You were
    bound Bibbs should go to the shop again, and I gave you and him, both, to
    understand pretty plainly that if he went it was at the risk of his life.
    Well, what did he do?  He said he wanted to go.  And he did go, and he's made
    good there.  Now, see: Isn't that enough?  Can't you let him off now?  He
    wants to write, and how do you know that he couldn't do it if you gave him a
    chance?  How do you know he hasn't some message-- something to say that might
    make the world just a little bit happier or wiser?  He MIGHT--in time--it's a
    possibility not to be denied.  Now he can't deliver any message if he goes
    down there with you, and he won't HAVE any to deliver.  I don't say going down
    with you is likely to injure his health, as I thought the shop would, and as
    the shop did, the first time.  I'm not speaking as doctor now, anyhow.  But I
    tell you one thing I know: if you take him down there you'll kill something
    that I feel is in him, and it's finer, I think, than his physical body, and
    you'll kill it deader than a door-nail!  And so why not let it live?  You've
    about come to the end of your string, old fellow.  Why not stop this perpetual
    devilish fighting and give Bibbs his chance?"

    Sheridan stood looking at him fixedly.  "What 'fighting?'"

    "Yours--with nature."  Gurney sustained the daunting gaze of his fierce
    antagonist equably.  "You don't seem to understand that you've been struggling
    against actual law."

    "What law?"

    "Natural law," said Gurney.  "What do you think beat you with Edith?  Did
    Edith, herself, beat you?  Didn't she obey without question something powerful
    that was against you?  EDITH wasn't against you, and you weren't against HER,
    but you set yourself against the power that had her in its grip, and it shot
    out a spurt of flame--and won in a walk!  What's taken Roscoe from you?
    Timbers bear just so much strain, old man; but YOU wanted to send the load
    across the broken bridge, and you thought you could bully or coax the cracked
    thing into standing.  Well, you couldn't! Now here's Bibbs.  There are
    thousands of men fit for the life you want him to lead--and so is he.  It
    wouldn't take half of Bibbs's brains to be twice as good a business man as Jim
    and Roscoe put together."

    "WHAT!" Sheridan goggled at him like a zany.

    "Your son Bibbs," said the doctor, composedly, "Bibbs Sheridan has the kind
    and quantity of 'gray matter' that will make him a success in anything--if he
    ever wakes up!  Personally I should prefer him to remain asleep.  I like him
    that way.  But the thousands of men fit for the life you want him to lead
    aren't fit to do much with the life he OUGHT to lead. Blindly, he's been
    fighting for the chance to lead it--he's obeying something that begs to stay
    alive within him; and, blindly, he knows you'll crush it out.  You've set your
    will to do it.  Let me tell you something more.  You don't know what you've
    become since Jim's going thwarted you--and that's what was uppermost, a
    bafflement stronger than your normal grief.  You're half mad with a consuming
    fury against the very self of the law--for it was the very self of the law
    that took Jim from you.  That was a law concerning the cohesion of molecules.
    The very self of the law took Roscoe from you and gave Edith the certainty of
    beating you; and the very self of the law makes Bibbs deny you to-night.  The
    LAW beats you.  Haven't you been whipped enough?  But you want to whip the law
    --you've set yourself against it, to bend it to your own ends, to wield it and
    twist it--"

    The voice broke from Sheridan's heaving chest in a shout.  "Yes!  And by God,
    I will!"

    "So Ajax defied the lightning," said Gurney.

    "I've heard that dam'-fool story, too," Sheridan retorted, fiercely. "That's
    for chuldern and niggers.  It ain't twentieth century, let me tell you!
    "Defied the lighning,' did he, the jackass!  If he'd been half a man he'd 'a'
    got away with it.  WE don't go showin' off defyin' the lightning --we hitch it
    up and make it work for us like a black-steer!  A man nowadays would just as
    soon think o' defyin' a wood-shed!"

    "Well, what about Bibbs?" said Gurney.  "Will you be a really big man now
    and--"

    "Gurney, you know a lot about bigness!"  Sheridan began to walk to and fro
    again, and the doctor returned gloomily to his chair.  He had shot his bolt
    the moment he judged its chance to strike center was best, but the target
    seemed unaware of the marksman.

    "I'm tryin' to make a big man out o' that poor truck yonder," Sheridan went
    on, "and you step in, beggin' me to let him be Lord knows what--I don't!  I
    suppose you figure it out that now I got a SON-IN-LAW, I mightn't need a son!
    Yes, I got a son-in-law now--a spender!"

    "Oh, put your hand back!" said Gurney, wearily.

    There was a bronze inkstand upon the table.  Sheridan put his right hand in
    the sling, but with his left he swept the inkstand from the table and half-way
    across the room--a comet with a destroying black tail.  Mrs. Sheridan shrieked
    and sprang toward it.

    "Let it lay!" he shouted, fiercely.  "Let it lay!"  And, weeping, she obeyed.
    "Yes, sir," he went on, in a voice the more ominous for the sudden hush he put
    upon it.  "I got a spender for a son-in-law!  It's wonderful where property
    goes, sometimes.  There was ole man Tracy--you remember him, Doc--J. R. Tracy,
    solid banker.  He went into the bank as messenger, seventeen years old; he was
    president at forty-three, and he built that bank with his life for forty years
    more.  He was down there from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon
    the day before he died--over eighty!  Gilt edge, that bank?  It was diamond
    edge!  He used to eat a bag o' peanuts and and apple for lunch; but he wasn't
    stingy --he was just livin' in his business.  He didn't care for pie or
    automobiles--he had his bank.  It was an institution, and it come pretty near
    bein' the beatin' heart o' this town in its time.  Well, that ole man used to
    pass one o' these here turned-up-nose and turned-up-pants cigarette boys on
    the streets.  Never spoke to him, Tracy didn't.  Speak to him?  God! he
    wouldn't 'a' coughed on him!  He wouldn't 'a' let him clean the cuspidors at
    the bank!  Why, if he'd 'a' just seen him standin' in FRONT the bank he'd 'a'
    had him run off the street.  And yet all Tracy  was doin' every day of his
    life was workin' for that cigarette boy!  Tracy thought it was for the bank;
    he thought he was givin' his life and his life-blood and the blood of his
    brain for the bank, but he wasn't.  It was every bit--from the time he went in
    at seventeen till he died in harness at eighty-three--it was every last lick
    of it just slavin' for that turned-up-nose, turned-up-pants cigarette boy.
    AND TRACY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW HIS NAME!  He died, not ever havin' heard it,
    though he chased him off the front steps of his house once.  The day after
    Tracy died his old-maid daughter married the cigarette--and there AIN'T any
    Tracy bank any more! And now"--his voice rose again--"and now I got a
    cigarette son-in-law!"

    Gurney pointed to the flourishing right hand without speaking, and Sheridan
    once more returned it to the sling.

    "My son-in-law likes Florida this winter," Sheridan went on.  "That's good,
    and my son-in-law better enjoy it, because I don't think he'll be there next
    winter.  They got twelve-thousand dollars to spend, and I hear it can be done
    in Florida by rich sons-in-law.  When Roscoe's woman got me to spend that much
    on a porch for their new house, Edith wouldn't give me a minute's rest till I
    turned over the same to her.  And she's got it, besides what I gave her to go
    East on.  It 'll be gone long before this time next year, and when she comes
    home and leaves the cigarette behind-- for good--she'll get some more.  MY
    name ain't Tracy, and there ain't goin' to be any Tracy business in the
    Sheridan family.  And there ain't goin' to be any college foundin' and
    endowin' and trusteein', nor God-knows-what to keep my property alive when I'm
    gone!  Edith 'll be back, and she'll get a girl's share when she's through
    with that cigarette, but--"

    "By the way," interposed Gurney, "didn't Mrs. Sheridan tell me that Bibbs
    warned you Edith would marry Lamhorn in New York?"

    Sheridan went completely to pieces: he swore, while his wife screamed and
    stopped her ears.  And as he swore he pounded the table with his wounded hand,
    and when the doctor, after storming at him ineffectively, sprang to catch and
    protect that hand, Sheridan wrenched it away, tearing the bandage.  He
    hammered the table till it leaped.

    "Fool!" he panted, choking.  "If he's shown gumption enough to guess right the
    first time in his life, it's enough for me to begin learnin' him on!"  And,
    struggling with the doctor, he leaned toward Bibbs, thrusting forward his
    convulsed face, which was deathly pale.  "My name ain't Tracy, I tell you!" he
    screamed, hoarsely.  "You give in, you stubborn fool! I've had my way with you
    before, and I'll have my way with you now!"

    Bibbs's face was as white as his father's, but he kept remembering that
    "splendid look" of Mary's which he had told her would give him courage in a
    struggle, so that he would "never give  up."

    "No.  You can't have your way," he said.  And then, obeying a significant
    motion of Gurney's head, he went out quickly, leaving them struggling.

    Mrs. Sheridan, in a wrapper, noiselessly opened the door of her husband's room
    at daybreak the next morning, and peered within the darkened chamber. At the
    "old" house they had shared a room, but the architect had chosen to separate
    them at the New, and they had not known how to formulate an objection,
    although to both of them something seemed vaguely reprehensible in the new
    arrangement.

    Sheridan did not stir, and she was withdrawing her head from the aperture when
    he spoke.

    "Oh, I'm, AWAKE!  Come in, if you want to, and shut the door."

    She came and sat by the bed.  "I woke up thinkin' about it," she explained.
    "And the more I thought about it the surer I got I must be right, and I knew
    you'd be tormentin' yourself if you was awake, so-- well, you got plenty other
    troubles, but I'm just sure you ain't goin' to have the worry with Bibbs it
    looks like."

    "You BET I ain't!" he grunted.

    "Look how biddable he was about goin' back to the Works," she continued. "He's
    a right good-hearted boy, really, and sometimes I honestly have to say he
    seems right smart, too.  Now and then he'll say something sounds right bright.
    'Course, most always it doesn't, and a good deal of the time, when he says
    things, why, I have to feel glad we haven't got company, because they'd think
    he didn't have any gumption at all.  Yet, look at the way he did when
    Jim--when Jim got hurt.  He took right hold o' things.  'Course he'd been sick
    himself so much and all--and the rest of us never had, much, and we were kind
    o' green about what to do in that kind o' trouble--still, he did take hold,
    and everything went off all right; you'll have to say that much, papa. And Dr.
    Gurney says he's got brains, and you can't deny but what the doctor's right
    considerable of a man.  He acts sleepy, but that's only because he's got such
    a large practice--he's a pretty wide-awake kind of a man some ways.  Well,
    what he says last night about Bibbs himself bein' asleep, and how much he'd
    amount to if he ever woke up--that's what I got to thinkin' about.  You heard
    him, papa; he says, 'Bibbs 'll be a bigger business man than what Jim and
    Roscoe was put together--if he ever wakes up,' he says.  Wasn't that exactly
    what he says?"

    "I suppose so," said Sheridan, without exhibiting any interest.  "Gurney's
    crazier 'n Bibbs, but if he wasn't--if what he says was true--what of it?"

    "Listen, papa.  Just suppose Bibbs took it into his mind to get married. You
    know where he goes all the time--"

    "Oh, Lord, yes!"  Sheridan turned over in the bed, his face to the wall,
    leaving visible of himself only the thick grizzle of his hair.  "You better go
    back to sleep.  He runs over there--every minute she'll let him, I suppose.
    Go back to bed.  There's nothin' in it."

    "WHY ain't there?" she urged.  "I know better--there is, too!  You wait and
    see.  There's just one thing in the world that 'll wake the sleepiest young
    man alive up--yes, and make him JUMP up--and I don't care who he is or how
    sound asleep it looks like he is.  That's when he takes it into his head to
    pick out some girl and settle down and have a home and chuldern of his own.
    THEN, I guess, he'll go out after the money! You'll see.  I've known dozens o'
    cases, and so 've you--moony, no-'count young men, all notions and talk, goin'
    to be ministers, maybe or something; and there's just this one thing takes it
    out of 'em and brings 'em right down to business.  Well, I never could make
    out just what it is Bibbs wants to be, really; doesn't seem he wants to be a
    minister exactly --he's so far-away you can't tell, and he never SAYS--but I
    know this is goin' to get him right down to common sense.  Now, I don't say
    that Bibbs has got the idea in his head yet--'r else he wouldn't be talkin'
    that fool-talk about nine dollars a week bein' good enough for him to live on.
    But it's COMIN', papa, and he'll JUMP for whatever you want to hand him out.
    He will!  And I can tell you this much, too: he'll want all the salary and
    stock he can get hold of, and he'll hustle to keep gettin' more.  That girl's
    the kind that a young husband just goes crazy to give things to!  She's pretty
    and fine-lookin', and things look nice on her, and I guess she'd like to have
    'em about as well as the next.  And I guess she isn't gettin' many these days,
    either, and she'll be pretty ready for the change.  I saw her with her sleeves
    rolled up at the kitchen window the other day, and Jackson told me yesterday
    their cook left two weeks ago, and they haven't tried to hire another one.  He
    says her and her mother been doin' the housework a good while, and now they're
    doin' the cookin,' too.  'Course Bibbs wouldn't know that unless she's told
    him, and I reckon she wouldn't; she's kind o' stiffish-lookin', and Bibbs is
    too up in the clouds to notice anything like that for himself.  They've never
    asked him to a meal in the house, but he wouldn't notice that, either-- he's
    kind of innocent.  Now I was thinkin'--you know, I don't suppose we've hardly
    mentioned the girl's name at table since Jim went, but it seems to me maybe
    if--"

    Sheridan flung out his arms, uttering a sound half-groan, half-yawn. "You're
    barkin' up the wrong tree!  Go on back to bed, mamma!"

    "Why am I?" she demanded, crossly.  "Why am I barkin' up the wrong tree?"

    "Because you are.  There's nothin' in it."

    "I'll bet you," she said, rising--"I'll bet you he goes to church with her
    this morning.  What you want to bet?"

    "Go back to bed," he commanded.  "I KNOW what I'm talkin' about; there's
    nothin' in it, I tell you."

    She shook her head perplexedly.  "You think because--because Jim was runnin'
    so much with her it wouldn't look right?"

    "No.  Nothin' to do with it."

    "Then--do you know something about it that you ain't told me?"

    "Yes, I do," he grunted.  "Now go on.  Maybe I can get a little sleep.  I
    ain't had any yet!"

    "Well--"  She went to the door, her expression downcast.  "I thought
    maybe--but--"  She coughed prefatorily.  "Oh, papa, something else I wanted to
    tell you.  I was talkin' to Roscoe over the 'phone last night when the
    telegram came, so I forgot to tell you, but--well, Sibyl wants to come over
    this afternoon.  Roscoe says she has something she wants to say to us.  It 'll
    be the first time she's been out since she was able to sit up--and I reckon
    she wants to tell us she's sorry for what happened. They expect to get off by
    the end o' the week, and I reckon she wants to feel she's done what she could
    to kind o' make up.  Anyway, that's what he said.  I 'phoned him again about
    Edith, and he said it wouldn't disturb Sibyl, because she'd been expectin' it;
    she was sure all along it was goin' to happen; and, besides, I guess she's got
    all that foolishness pretty much out of her, bein' so sick.  But what I
    thought was, no use bein' rough with her, papa--I expect she's suffered a good
    deal--and I don't think we'd ought to be, on Roscoe's account.  You'll--you'll
    be kind o' polite to her, won't you, papa?"

    He mumbled something which was smothered under the coverlet he had pulled over
    his head.

    "What?" she said, timidly.  "I was just sayin' I hoped you'd treat Sibyl all
    right when she comes, this afternoon.  You will, won't you, papa?"

    He threw the coverlet off furiously. "I presume so!" he roared.

    She departed guiltily.

    But if he had accepted her proffered wager that Bibbs would go to church with
    Mary Vertrees that morning, Mrs. Sheridan would have lost. Nevertheless, Bibbs
    and Mary did certainly set out from Mr. Vertrees's house with the purpose of
    going to church.  That was their intention, and they had no other.  They meant
    to go to church.

    But it happened that they were attentively preoccupied in a conversation as
    they came to the church; and though Mary was looking to the right and Bibbs
    was looking to the left, Bibbs's leftward glance converged with Mary's
    rightward glance, and neither was looking far beyond the other at this time.
    It also happened that, though they were a little jostled among groups of
    people in the vicinity of the church, they passed this somewhat prominent
    edifice without being aware of their proximity to it, and they had gone an
    incredible number of blocks beyond it before they discovered their error.
    However, feeling that they might be embarrassingly late if they returned, they
    decided that a walk would make them as good.  It was a windless winter
    morning, with an inch of crisp snow over the ground.  So they walked, and for
    the most part they were silent, but on their way home, after they had turned
    back at noon, they began to be talkative again.

    "Mary," said Bibbs, after a time, "am I a sleep-walker?"

    She laughed a little, then looked grave.  "Does your father say you are?"

    "Yes--when he's in a mood to flatter me.  Other times, other names.  He has
    quite a list."

    "You mustn't mind," she said, gently.  "He's been getting some pretty severe
    shocks.  What you've told me makes me pretty sorry for him, Bibbs. I've always
    been sure he's very big."

    "Yes.  Big and--blind.  He's like a Hercules without eyes and without any
    consciousness except that of his strength and of his purpose to grow stronger.
    Stronger for what?  For nothing."

    "Are you sure, Bibbs?  It CAN'T be for nothing; it must be stronger for
    something, even though he doesn't know what it is.  Perhaps what he and his
    kind are struggling for is something so great they COULDN'T see it--so great
    none of us could see it."

    "No, he's just like some blind, unconscious thing heaving underground--"

    "Till he breaks through and leaps out into the daylight," she finished for
    him, cheerily.

    "Into the smoke," said Bibbs.  "Look at the powder of coal-dust already
    dirtying the decent snow, even though it's Sunday.  That's from the little
    pigs; the big ones aren't so bad, on Sunday!  There's a fleck of soot on your
    cheek.  Some pig sent it out into the air; he might as well have thrown it on
    you.  It would have been braver, for then he'd have taken his chance of my
    whipping him for it if I could."

    "IS there soot on my cheek, Bibbs, or were you only saying so rhetorically?
    IS there?"

    "Is there?  There ARE soot on your cheeks, Mary--a fleck on each.  One landed
    since I mentioned the first."

    She halted immediately, giving him her handkerchief, and he succeeded in
    transferring most of the black from her face to the cambric.  They were
    entirely matter-of-course about it.

    An elderly couple, it chanced, had been walking behind Bibbs and Mary for the
    last block or so, and passed ahead during the removal of the soot. "There!"
    said the elderly wife.  "You're always wrong when you begin guessing about
    strangers.  Those two young people aren't honeymooners at all--they've been
    married for years.  A blind man could see that."

    "I wish I did know who threw that soot on you," said Bibbs, looking up at the
    neighboring chimneys, as they went on.  "They arrest children for throwing
    snowballs at the street-cars, but--"

    "But they don't arrest the street-cars for shaking all the pictures in the
    houses crooked every time they go by.  Nor for the uproar they make.  I wonder
    what's the cost in nerves for the noise of the city each year. Yes, we pay the
    price for living in a 'growing town,' whether we have money to pay or none."

    "Who is it gets the pay?" said Bibbs.

    "Not I!" she laughed.

    "Nobody gets it.  There isn't any pay; there's only money.  And only some of
    the men down-town get much of that.  That's what my father wants me to get."

    "Yes," she said, smiling to him, and nodding.  "And you don't want it, and you
    don't need it."

    "But you don't think I'm a sleep-walker, Mary?"  He had told her of his
    father's new plans for him, though he had not described the vigor and
    picturesqueness of their setting forth.  "You think I'm right?"

    "A thousand times!" she cried.  "There aren't so many happy people in this
    world, I think--and you say you've found what makes you happy.  If it's a
    dream--keep it!"

    "The thought of going down there--into the money shuffle--I hate it as I never
    hated the shop!" he said.  "I hate it!  And the city itself, the city that the
    money shuffle has made--just look at it!  Look at it in winter.  The snow's
    tried hard to make the ugliness bearable, but the ugliness is winning; it's
    making the snow hideous; the snow's getting dirty on top, and it's foul
    underneath with the dirt and disease of the unclean street.  And the dirt and
    the ugliness and the rush and the noise aren't the worst of it; it's what the
    dirt and ugliness and rush and noise MEAN--that's the worst!  The outward
    things are insufferable, but they're only the expression of a spirit--a blind
    enbryo of a spirit, not yet a soul--oh, just greed!  And this 'go ahead'
    nonsense!  Oughtn't it all to be a fellowship?  I shouldn't want to get ahead
    if I could--I'd want to help the other fellow to keep up with me."

    "I read something the other day and remembered it for you," said Mary. "It was
    something Burne-Jones said of a picture he was going to paint: 'In the first
    picture I shall make a man walking in the street of a great city, full of all
    kinds of happy life: children, and lovers walking, and ladies leaning from the
    windows all down great lengths of street leading to the city walls; and there
    the gates are wide open, letting in a space of green field and cornfield in
    harvest; and all round his head a great rain of swirling autumn leaves blowing
    from a lttle walled graveyard."

    "And if I painted," Bibbs returned, "I'd paint a lady walking in the street of
    a great city, full of all kinds of uproarious and futile life-- children being
    taught only how to make money, and lovers hurrying to get richer, and ladies
    who'd given up trying to wash their windows clean, and the gates of the city
    wide open, letting in slums and slaughter-houses and freight-yards, and all
    round this lady's head a great rain of swirling soot--"  He paused, adding,
    thoughtfully: "And yet I believe I'm glad that soot got on your cheek.  It was
    just as if I were your brother-- the way you gave me your handkerchief to rub
    it off for you.  Still, Edith never--"

    "Didn't she?" said Mary, as he paused again.

    "No.  And I--"  He contented himself with shaking his head instead of offering
    more definite information.  Then he realized that they were passing the New
    House, and he sighed profoundly.  "Mary, our walk's almost over."

    She looked as blank.  "So it is, Bibbs."

    They said no more until they came to her gate.  As they drifted slowly to a
    stop, the door of Roscoe's house opened, and Roscoe came out with Sibyl, who
    was startlingly pale.  She seemed little enfeebled by her illness, however,
    walking rather quickly at her husband's side and not taking his arm.  The two
    crossed the street without appearing to see Mary and her companion, and
    entering the New House, were lost to sight.  Mary gazed after them gravely,
    but Bibbs, looking at Mary, did not see them.

    "Mary," he said, "you seem very serious.  Is anything bothering you?"

    "No, Bibbs."  And she gave him a bright, quick look that made him instantly
    unreasonably happy.

    "I know you want to go in--" he began.

    "No.  I don't want to."

    "I mustn't keep you standing her, and I mustn't go in with you--but--I just
    wanted to say--I've seemed very stupid to myself this morning, grumbling about
    soot and all that--while all the time I--Mary, I think it's been the very
    happiest of all the hours you've given me.  I do.  And --I don't know just
    why--but it's seemed to me that it was one I'd always remember.  And you," he
    added, falteringly, "you look so--so beautiful to-day!"

    "It must have been the soot on my cheek, Bibbs."

    "Mary, will you tell me something?" he asked.

    "I think I will."

    "It's something I've had a lot of theories about, but none of them ever just
    fits.  You used to wear furs in the fall, but now it's so much colder, you
    don't--you never wear them at all any more.  Why don't you?"

    Her eyes fell for a moment, and she grew red.  Then she looked up gaily.
    "Bibbs, if I tell you the answer will you promise not to ask any more
    questions?"

    "Yes.  Why did you stop wearing them?"

    "Because I found I'd be warmer without them!"  She caught his hand quickly in
    her own for an instant, laughed into his eyes, and ran into the house.

    It is the consoling attribute of unused books that their decorative warmth
    will so often make even a ready-made library the actual "living-room" of a
    family to whom the shelved volumes are indeed sealed.  Thus it was with
    Sheridan, who read nothing except newspapers, business letters, and figures;
    who looked upon books as he looked upon bric-a-brac or crocheting --when he
    was at home, and not abed or eating, he was in the library.

    He stood in the many-colored light of the stained-glass window at the far end
    of the long room, when Roscoe and his wife came in, and he exhaled a
    solemnity.  His deference to the Sabbath was manifest, as always, in the
    length of his coat and the closeness of his Saturday-night shave; and his
    expression, to match this religious pomp, was more than Sabbatical, but the
    most dismaying of his demonstrations was his keeping his hand in his sling.

    Sibyl advanced to the middle of the room and halted there, not looking at him,
    but down at her muff, in which, it could be seen, her hands were nervously
    moving.  Roscoe went to a chair in another part of the room. There was a
    deadly silence.

    But Sibyl found a shaky voice, after an interval of gulping, though she was
    unable to lift her eyes, and the darkling lids continued to veil them. She
    spoke hurriedly, like an ungifted child reciting something committed to
    memory, but her sincerity was none the less evident for that.

    "Father Sheridan, you and mother Sheridan have always been so kind to me, and
    I would hate to have you think I don't appreciate it, from the way I acted.
    I've come to tell you I am sorry for the way I did that night, and to say I
    know as well as anybody the way I behaved, and it will never happen again,
    because it's been a pretty hard lesson; and when we come back, some day, I
    hope you'll see that you've got a daughter-in-law you never need to be ashamed
    of again.  I want to ask you to excuse me for the way I did, and I can say I
    haven't any feelings toward Edith now, but only wish her happiness and good in
    her new life.  I thank you for all your kindness to me, and I know I made a
    poor return for it, but if you can overlook the way I behaved I know I would
    feel a good deal happier--and I know Roscoe would, too.  I wish to promise not
    to be as foolish in the future, and the same error would never occur again to
    make us all so unhappy, if you can be charitable enought to excuse it this
    time."

    He looked steadily at her without replying, and she stood before him, never
    lifting her eyes; motionless, save where the moving fur proved the agitation
    of her hands within the muff.

    "All right," he said at last.

    She looked up then with vast relief, though there was a revelation of heavy
    tears when the eyelids lifted.

    "Thank you," she said.  "There's something else--about something different--I
    want to say to you, but I want mother Sheridan to hear it, too."

    "She's up-stairs in her room," said Sheridan.  "Roscoe--"

    Sibyl interrupted.  She had just seen Bibbs pass through the hall and begin to
    ascend the stairs; and in a flash she instinctively perceived the chance for
    precisely the effect she wanted.

    "No, let me go," she said.  "I want to speak to her a minute first, anyway."

    And she went away quickly, gaining the top of the stairs in time to see Bibbs
    enter his room and close the door.  Sibyl knew that Bibbs, in his room, had
    overheard her quarrel with Edith in the hall outside; for bitter Edith,
    thinking the more to shame her, had subsequently informed her of the
    circumstance.  Sibyl had just remembered this, and with the recollection there
    had flashed the thought--out of her own experience-- that people are often
    much more deeply impressed by words they overhear than by words directly
    addressed to them.  Sibyl intended to make it impossible for Bibbs not to
    overhear.  She did not hesitate--her heart was hot with the old sore, and she
    believed wholly in the justice of her cause and in the truth of what she was
    going to say.  Fate was virtuous at times; it had delivered into her hands the
    girl who had affronted her.

    Mrs. Sheridan was in her own room.  The approach of Sibyl and Roscoe had
    driven her from the library, for she had miscalculated her husband's mood, and
    she felt that if he used his injured hand as a mark of emphasis again, in her
    presence, she would (as she thought of it) "have a fit right there."  She
    heard Sibyl's step, and pretended to be putting a touch to her hair before a
    mirror.

    "I was just coming down," she said, as the door opened.

    "Yes, he wants you to," said Sibyl.  "It's all right, mother Sheridan. He's
    forgiven me."

    Mrs. Sheridan sniffed instantly; tears appeared.  She kissed her
    daughter-in-law's cheek; then, in silence, regarded the mirror afresh, wiped
    her eyes, and applied powder.

    "And I hope Edith will be happy," Sibyl added, inciting more applications of
    Mrs. Sheridan's handkerchief and powder.

    "Yes, yes," murmured the good woman.  "We mustn't make the worst of things."

    "Well, there was something else I had to say, and he wants you to hear it,
    too," said Sibyl.  "We better go down, mother Sheridan."

    She led the way, Mrs. Sheridan following obediently, but when they came to a
    spot close by Bibbs's door, Sibyl stopped.  "I want to tell you about it
    first," she said, abruptly.  "It isn't a secret, of course, in any way; it's
    something the whole family has to know, and the sooner the whole family knows
    it the better.  It's something it wouldn't be RIGHT for us ALL not to
    understand, and of course father Sheridan most of all.  But I want to just
    kind of go over it first with you; it 'll kind of help me to see I got it all
    stratight.  I haven't got any reason for saying it except the good of the
    family, and it's nothing to me, one way or the other, of course, except for
    that.  I oughtn't to 've behaved the way I did that night, and it seems to me
    if there's anything I can do to help the family, I ought to, because it would
    help show I felt the right way.  Well, what I want to do is to tell this so's
    to keep the family from being made a fool of.  I don't want to see the family
    just made use of and twisted around her finger by somebody that's got no more
    heart than so much ice, and just as sure to bring troubles in the long run
    as--as Edith's mistake is. Well, then, this is the way it is.  I'll just tell
    you how it looks to me and see if it don't strike you the same way."

    Within the room, Bibbs, much annoyed, tapped his ear with his pencil.  He
    wished they wouldn't stand talking near his door when he was trying to write.
    He had just taken from his trunk the manuscript of a poem begun the preceding
    Sunday afternoon, and he had some ideas he wanted to fix upon paper before
    they maliciously seized the first opportunity to vanish, for they were but
    gossamer.  Bibbs was pleased with the beginnings of his poem, and if he could
    carry it through he meant to dare greatly with it-- he would venture it upon
    an editor.  For he had his plan of life now: his day would be of manual labor
    and thinking--he could think of his friend and he could think in cadences for
    poems, to the crashing of the strong machine--and if his father turned him out
    of home and out of the Works, he would work elsewhere and live elsewhere.  His
    father had the right, and it mattered very little to Bibbs--he faced the
    prospect of a working-man's lodging-house without trepidation.  He could find
    a washstand to write upon, he thought; and every evening when he left Mary he
    would write a little; and he would write on holidays and on Sundays--on
    Sundays in the afternoon.  In a lodging-house, at least he wouldn't be
    interrupted by his sister-in-law's choosing the immediate vicinity of his door
    for conversations evidently important to herself, but merely disturbing to
    him.  He frowned plaintively, wishing he could think of some polite way of
    asking her to go away.  But, as she went on, he started violently, dropping
    manuscript and pencil upon the floor.

    "I don't know whether you heard it, mother Sheridan," she said, "but this old
    Vertrees house, next door, had been sold on foreclosure, and all THEY got out
    of it was an agreement that let's 'em live there a little longer. Roscoe told
    me, and he says he heard Mr. Vertrees has been up and down the streets more 'n
    two years, tryin' to get a job he could call a 'position,' and couldn't land
    it.  You heard anything about it, mother Sheridan?"

    "Well, I DID know they been doin' their own house-work a good while back,"
    said Mrs. Sheridan.  "And now they're doin' the cookin', too."

    Sibyl sent forth a little titter with a sharp edge.  "I hope they find
    something to cook!  She sold her piano mighty quick after Jim died!"

    Bibbs jumped up.  He was trembling from head to foot and he was dizzy-- of all
    the real things he could never have dreamed in his dream the last would have
    been what he heard now.  He felt that something incredible was happening, and
    that he was powerless to stop it.  It seemed to him that heavy blows were
    falling on his head and upon Mary's; it seemed to him that he and Mary were
    being struck and beaten physically--and  that something hideous impended.  He
    wanted to shout to Sibyl to be silent, but he could not; he could only stand,
    swallowing and trembling.

    "What I think the whole family ought to understand is just this," said Sibyl,
    sharply.  "Those people were so hard up that this Miss Vertrees started after
    Bibbs before they knew whether he was INSANE or not!  They'd got a notion he
    might be, from his being in a sanitarium, and Mrs. Vertrees ASKED me if he was
    insane, the very first day Bibbs took the daughter out auto-riding!"  She
    paused a moment, looking at Mrs. Sheridan, but listening intently.  There was
    no sound from within the room.

    "No!" exclaimed Mrs. Sheridan.

    "It's the truth," Sibyl declared, loudly.  "Oh, of course we were all crazy
    about that girl at first.  We were pretty green when we moved up here, and we
    thought she'd get us IN--but it didn't take ME long to read her!  Her family
    were down and out when it came to money--and they had to go after it, one way
    or another, SOMEHOW!  So she started for Roscoe; but she found out pretty
    quick he was married, and she turned right around to Jim--and she landed him!
    There's no doubt about it, she had Jim, and if he'd lived you'd had another
    daughter-in-law before this, as sure as I stand here telling you the God's
    truth about it!  Well--when Jim was left in the cemetery she was waiting out
    there to drive home with Bibbs! Jim wasn't COLD--and she didn't know whether
    Bibbs was insane or not, but he was the only one of the rich Sheridan boys
    left.  She had to get him."

    The texture of what was the truth made an even fabric with what was not, in
    Sibyl's mind; she believed every word that she uttered, and she spoke with the
    rapidity and vehemence of fierce conviction.

    "What I feel about it is," she said, "it oughtn't to be allowed to go on. It's
    too mean!  I like poor Bibbs, and I don't want to see him made such a fool of,
    and I don't want to see the family made such a fool of!  I like poor Bibbs,
    but if he'd only stop to think a minute himself he'd have to realize he isn't
    the kind of man ANY girl would be apt to fall in love with.  He's
    better-looking lately, maybe, but you know how he WAS--just kind of a long
    white rag in good clothes.  And girls like men with some SO to 'em--SOME sort
    of dashingness, anyhow!  Nobody ever looked at poor Bibbs before, and
    neither'd she--no, SIR! not till she'd tried both Roscoe and Jim first!  It
    was only when her and her family got desperate that she--"

    Bibbs--whiter than when he came from the sanitarium--opened the door. He
    stepped across its threshold and stook looking at her.  Both women screamed.

    "Oh, good heavens!" cried Sibyl.  "Were you in THERE?  Oh, I wouldn't--" She
    seized Mrs. Sheridan's arm, pulling her toward the stairway.  "Come on, mother
    Sheridan!" she urged, and as the befuddled and confused lady obeyed, Sibyl
    left a trail of noisy exclamations: "Good gracious!  Oh, I wouldn't--Too bad!
    I didn't DREAM he was there!  I wouldn't hurt his feelings!  Not for the
    world!  Of course he had to know SOME time!  But, good heavens--"

    She heard his door close as she and Mrs. Sheridan reached the top of the
    stairs, and she glanced over her shoulder quickly, but Bibbs was not
    following; he had gone back into his room.

    "He--he looked--oh, terrible bad!" stammered Mrs. Sheridan.  "I--I wish--"

    "Still, it's a good deal better he knows about it," said Sibyl.  "I shouldn't
    wonder it might turn out the very best thing could happened. Come on!"

    And completing their descent to the library, the two made their appearance to
    Roscoe and his father.  Sibyl at once gave a full and truthful account of what
    had taken place, repeating her own remarks, and omitting only the fact that it
    was through her design that Bibbs had overheard them.

    "But as I told mother Sheridan," she said, in conclusion, "it might turn out
    for the very best that he did hear--just that way.  Don't you think so, father
    Sheridan?"

    He merely grunted in reply, and sat rubbing the thick hair on the top of his
    head with his left hand and looking at the fire.  He had given no sign of
    being impressed in any manner by her exposure of Mary Vertrees's character;
    but his impassivity did not dismay Sibyl--it was Bibbs whom she desired to
    impress, and she was content in that matter.

    "I'm sure it was all for the best," she said.  "It's over now, and he knows
    what she is.  In one way I think it was lucky, because, just hearing a thing
    that way, a person can tell it's SO--and he knows I haven't got any ax to
    grind except his own good and the good of the family."

    Mrs. Sheridan went nervously to the door and stood there, looking toward the
    stairway.  "I wish--I wish I knew what he was doin'," she said.  "He did look
    terrible bad.  It was like something had been done to him that was--I don't
    know what.  I never saw anybody look like he did.  He looked--so queer.  It
    was like you'd--"  She called down the hall, "George!"

    "Yes'm?"

    "Were you up in Mr. Bibbs's room just now?"

    "Yes,m.  He ring bell; tole me make him fiah in his grate.  I done buil' him
    nice fiah.  I reckon he ain' feelin' so well.  Yes'm."  He departed.

    "What do you expect he wants a fire for?" she asked, turning toward her
    husband.  "The house is warm as can be,  I do wish I--"

    "Oh, quit frettin'!" said Sheridan.

    "Well, I--I kind o' wish you hadn't said anything, Sibyl.  I know you meant it
    for the best and all, but I don't believe it would been so much harm if--"

    "Mother Sheridan, you don't mean you WANT that kind of a girl in the family?
    Why, she--"

    "I don't know, I don't know," the troubled woman quavered.  "If he liked her
    it seems kind of a pity to spoil it.  He's so queer, and he hasn't ever taken
    much enjoyment.  And besides, I believe the way it was, there was more chance
    of him bein' willin' to do what papa wants him to.  If she wants to marry
    him--"

    Sheridan interrupted her with a hooting laugh.  "She don't!" he said. "You're
    barkin' up the wrong tree, Sibyl.  She ain't that kind of a girl."

    "But, father Sheridan, didn't she--"

    He cut her short.  "That's enough.  You may mean all right, but you guess
    wrong.  So do you, mamma."

    Sibyl cried out, "Oh!  But just LOOK how she ran after Jim--"

    "She did not," he said, curtly.  "She wouldn't take Jim.  She turned him down
    cold."

    "But that's impossi--"

    "It's not.  I KNOW she did."

    Sibyl looked flatly incredulous.

    "And YOU needn't worry," he said, turning to his wife.  "This won't have any
    effect on your idea, because there wasn't any sense to it, anyhow.  D' you
    think she'd be very likely to take Bibbs--after she wouldn't take JIM?  She's
    a good-hearted girl, and she lets Bibbs come to see her, but if she'd ever
    given him one sign of encouragement the way you women think, he wouldn't of
    acted the stubborn fool he has--he'd 'a' been at me long ago, beggin' me for
    some kind of a job he could support a wife on. There's nothin' in it--and I've
    got the same old fight with him on my hands I've had all his life--and the
    Lord knows what he won't do to balk me!  What's happened now 'll probably only
    make him twice as srubborn, but --"

    "SH!"  Mrs. Sheridan, still in the doorway, lifted her hand.  "That's his
    step--he's comin' down-stairs."  She shrank away from the door as if she
    feared to have Bibbs see her.  "I--I wonder--" she said, almost in a
    whisper--"I wonder what he'd goin'--to do."

    Her timorousness had its effect upon the others.  Sheridan rose, frowning, but
    remained standing beside his chair; and Roscoe moved toward Sibyl, who stared
    uneasily at the open doorway.  They listened as the slow steps descended the
    stairs and came toward the library.

    Bibbs stopped upon the threshold, and with sick and haggard eyes looked slowly
    from one to the other until at last his gaze rested upon his father.  Then he
    came and stood before him.

    "I'm sorry you've had so much trouble with me," he said, gently.  "You won't,
    any more.  I'll take the job you offered me."

    Sheridan did not speak--he stared, astounded and incredulous; and Bibbs had
    left the room before any of its occupants uttered a sound, though he went as
    slowly as he came.  Mrs. Sheridan was the first to move.  She went nervously
    back to the doorway, and then out into the hall.  Bibbs had gone from the
    house.

    Bibbs's mother had a feeling about him then that she had never known before;
    it was indefinite and vague, but very poignant--something in her mourned for
    him uncomprehendingly.  She felt that an awful thing had been done to him,
    though she did not know what it was.  She went up to his room.

    The fire George had built for him was almost smothered under thick, charred
    ashes of paper.  The lid of his trunk stood open, and the large upper tray,
    which she remembered to have seen full of papers and note-books, was empty.
    And somehow she understood that Bibbs had given up the mysterious vocation he
    had hoped to follow--and that he had given it up for ever.  She thought it was
    the wisest thing he could have done-- and yet, for an unknown reason, she sat
    upon the bed and wept a little before she went down-stairs.

    So Sheridan had his way with Bibbs, all through.

    As Bibbs came out of the New House, a Sunday trio was in course of passage
    upon the sidewalk: an ample young woman, placid of face; a black-clad, thin
    young man, whose expression was one of habitual anxiety, habitual wariness and
    habitual eagerness.  He propelled a perambulator containing the third--and all
    three were newly cleaned, Sundayfied, and made fit to dine with the wife's
    relatives.

    "How'd you like for me to be THAT young fella, mamma?" the husband whispered.
    "He's one of the sons, and there ain't but two left now."

    The wife stared curiously at Bibbs.  "Well, I don't know," she returned. "He
    looks to me like he had his own troubles."

    "I expect he has, like anybody else," said the young husband, "but I guess we
    could stand a good deal if we had his money."

    "Well, maybe, if you keep on the way you been, baby 'll be as well fixed as
    the Sheridans.  You can't tell."  She glanced back at Bibbs, who had turned
    north.  "He walks kind of slow and stooped over, like."

    "So much money in his pockets it makes him sag, I guess," said the young
    husband, with bitter admiration.

    Mary, happening to glance from a window, saw Bibbs coming, and she started,
    clasping her hands together in a sudden alarm.  She met him at the door.

    "Bibbs!" she cried.  "What is the matter?  I saw something was terribly wrong
    when I--You look--"  She paused, and he came in, not lifting his eyes to hers.
    Always when he crossed that threshold he had come with his head up and his
    wistful gaze seeking hers.  "Ah, poor boy!" she said, with a gesture of
    understanding and pity.  "I know what it is!"

    He followed her into the room where they always sat, and sank into a chair.

    "You needn't tell me," she said.  "They've made you give up.  Your father's
    won--you're going to do what he wants.  You've given up."

    Still without looking at her, he inclined his head in affirmation.

    She gave a little cry of compassion, and came and sat near him.  "Bibbs," she
    said.  "I can be glad of one thing, though it's selfish.  I can be glad you
    came straight to me.  It's more to me than even if you'd come because you were
    happy."  She did not speak again for a little while; then she said:
    "Bibbs--dear--could you tell me about it?  Do you want to?"

    Still he did not look up, but in a voice, shaken and husky he asked her a
    question so grotesque that at first she thought she had misunderstood his words.

    "Mary," he said, "could you marry me?"

    "What did you say, Bibbs?" she asked, quietly.

    His tone and attitude did not change.  "Will you marry me?"

    Both of her hands leaped to her cheeks--she grew red and then white. She rose
    slowly and moved backward from him, staring at him, at first incredulously,
    then with an intense perplexity more and more luminous in her wide eyes; it
    was like a spoken question.  The room filled with strangeness in the long
    silence--the two were so strange to each other. At last she said:

    "What made you say that?"

    He did not answer.

    "Bibbs, look at me!"  Her voice was loud and clear.  "What made you say that?
    Look at me!"

    He could not look at her, and he could not speak.

    "What was it that made you?" she said.  "I want you to tell me."

    She went closer to him, her eyes ever brighter and wider with that intensity
    of wonder.  "You've given up--to your father," she said, slowly, "and then you
    came to ask me--"  She broke off.  "Bibbs, do you want me to marry you?"

    "Yes," he said, just audibly.

    "No!" she cried.  "You do not.  Then what made you ask me?  What is it that's
    happened?"

    "Nothing."

    "Wait," she said.  "Let me think.  It's something that happened since our walk
    this morning--yes, since you left me at noon.  Something happened that--"  She
    stopped abruptly, with a tremulous murmur of amazement and dawning
    comprehension.  She remembered that Sibyl had gone to the New House.

    Bibbs swallowed painfully and contrived to say, "I do--I do want you to
    --marry me, if--if--you could."

    She looked at him, and slowly shook her head.  "Bibbs, do you--"  Her voice
    was as unsteady as his--little more than a whisper.  "Do you think I'm --in
    love with you?"

    "No," he said.

    Somewhere in the still air of the room there was a whispered word; it did not
    seem to come from Mary's parted lips, but he was aware of it. "Why?"

    "I've had nothing but dreams," Bibbs said, desolately, "but they weren't like
    that.  Sibyl said no girl could care about me."  He smiled faintly, though
    still he did not look at Mary.  "And when I first came home Edith told me
    Sibyl was so anxious to marry that she'd have married ME.  She meant it to
    express Sibyl's extremeity, you see.  But I hardly needed either of them to
    tell me.  I hadn't thought of myself as--well, not as particularly
    captivating!"

    Oddly enough, Mary's pallor changed to an angry flush.  "Those two!" she
    exclaimed, sharply; and then, with thoroughgoing contempt: "Lamhorn! That's
    like them!"  She turned away, went to the bare little black mantel, and stood
    leaning upon it.  Presently she asked: "WHEN did Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan say that
    'no girl' could care about you?"

    "To-day."

    Mary drew a deep breath.  "I think I'm beginning to understand--a little."
    She bit her lip; there was anger in good truth in her eyes and in her voice.
    "Answer me once more," she said.  "Bibbs, do you know now why I stopped
    wearing my furs?"

    "Yes."

    "I thought so!  Your sister-in-law told you, didn't she?"

    "I--I heard her say--"

    "I think I know what happened, now."  Mary's breath came fast and her voice
    shook, but she spoke rapidly.  "You 'heard her say' more than that. You 'heard
    her say' that we were bitterly poor, and on that account I tried first to
    marry your brother--and then--"  But now she faltered, and it was only after a
    convulsive effort that she was able to go on. "And then--that I tried to
    marry--you!  You 'heard her say' that-- and you believe that I don't care for
    you and that 'no girl' could care for you--but you think I am in such an
    'extremity,' as Sibyl was--that you -- And so, not wanting me, and believing
    that I could not want you-- except for my 'extremity'--you took your father's
    offer and then came to ask me--to marry you!  What had I shown you of myself
    that could make you--"

    Suddenly she sank down, kneeling, with her face buried in her arms upon the
    lap of a chair, tears overwhelming her.

    "Mary, Mary!" he cried, helplessly.  "Oh NO--you--you don't understand."

    "I do, though!" she sobbed.  "I do!"

    He came and stood beside her.  "You kill me!" he said.  "I can't make it
    plain.  From the first of your loveliness to me, I was all self.  It was
    always you that gave and I that took.  I was the dependent--I did nothing but
    lean on you.  We always talked of me, not of you.  It was all about my idiotic
    distresses and troubles.  I thought of you as a kind of wonderful being that
    had no mortal or human suffering except by sympathy. You seemed to lean
    down--out of a rosy cloud--to be kind to me.  I never dreamed I could do
    anything for YOU!  I never dreamed you could need anything to be done for you
    by anybody.  And to-day I heard that--that you--"

    "You heard that I needed to marry--some one--anybody--with money," she sobbed.
    "And you thought we were so--so desperate--you believed that I had--"

    "No!" he said, quickly.  "I didn't believe you'd done one kind thing for
    me--for that.  No, no, no!  I knew you'd NEVER thought of me except
    generously--to give.  I said I couldn't make it plain!" he cried,
    despairingly.

    "Wait!"  She lifted her head and extended her hands to him unconsciously, like
    a child.  "Help me up, Bibbs."  Then, when she was once more upon her feet,
    she wiped her eyes and smiled upon him ruefully and faintly, but reassuringly,
    as if to tell him, in that way, that she knew he had not meant to hurt her.
    And that smile of hers, so lamentable, but so faithfully friendly, misted his
    own eyes, for his shamefacedness lowered them no more.

    "Let me tell you what you want to tell me," she said.  "You can't, because you
    can't put it into words--they are too humiliating for me and you're too gentle
    to say them.  Tell me, though, isn't it true?  You didn't believe that I'd
    tried to make you fall in love with me--"

    "Never!  Never for an instant!"

    "You didn't believe I'd tried to make you want to marry me--"

    "No, no, no!"

    "I believe it, Bibbs.  You thought that I was fond of you; you knew I cared
    for you--but you didn't think I might be--in love with you.  But you thought
    that I might marry you without being in love with you because you did believe
    I had tried to marry your brother, and--"

    "Mary, I only knew--for the first time--that you--that you were--"

    "Were desperately poor," she said.  "You can't even say that!  Bibbs, it was
    true: I did try to make Jim want to marry me.  I did!"  And she sank down into
    the chair, weeping bitterly again.  Bibbs was agonized.

    "Mary," he groaned, "I didn't know you COULD cry!"

    "Listen," she said.  "Listen till I get through--I want you to understand.  We
    were poor, and we weren't fitted to be.  We never had been, and we didn't know
    what to do.  We'd been almost rich; there was plenty, but my father wanted to
    take advantage of the growth of the town; he wanted to be richer, but
    instead--well, just about the time your father finished building next door we
    found we hadn't anything.  People say that, sometimes, meaning that they
    haven't anything in comparison with other people of their own kind, but we
    really hadn't anything--we hadn't anything at all, Bibbs!  And we couldn't DO
    anything.  You might wonder why I didn't 'try to be a stenographer'--and I
    wonder myself why, when a family loses its money, people always say the
    daughters 'ought to go and be stenographers.'  It's curious!--as if a wave of
    the hand made you into a stenographer.  No, I'd been raised to be either
    married comfortably or a well-to-do old maid, if I chose not to marry.  The
    poverty came on slowly, Bibbs, but at last it was all there--and I didn't know
    how to be a stenographer.  I didn't know how to be anything except a
    well-to-do old maid or somebody's wife--and I couldn't be a well-to-do old
    maid.  Then, Bibbs, I did what I'd been raised to know how to do.  I went out
    to be fascinating and be married.  I did it openly, at least, and with a kind
    of decent honesty.  I told your brother I had meant to fascinate him and that
    I was not in love with him, but I let him think that perhaps I meant to marry
    him.  I think I did mean to mary him.  I had never cared for anybody, and I
    thought it might be there really WASN'T anything more than a kind of excited
    fondness.  I can't be sure, but I think that though I did mean to marry him I
    never should have done it, because that sort of a marriage is--it's
    sacrilege--something would have stopped me. Something did stop me; it was your
    sister-in-law, Sibyl.  She meant no harm--but she was horrible, and she put
    what I was doing into such horrible words--and they were the truth--oh! I SAW
    myself!  She was proposing a miserable compact with me--and I couldn't breathe
    the air of the same room with her, though I'd so cheapened myself she had a
    right to assume that I WOULD.  But I couldn't!  I left her, and I wrote to
    your brother--just a quick scrawl.  I told him just what I'd done; I asked his
    pardon, and I said I would not marry him.  I posted the letter, but he never
    got it.  That was the afternoon he was killed.  That's all, Bibbs. Now you
    know what I did--and you know--ME!"  She pressed her clenched hands tightly
    against her eyes, leaning far forward, her head bowed before him.

    Bibbs had forgotten himself long ago; his heart broke for her.  "Couldn't
    you--Isn't there--Won't you--" he stammered.  "Mary, I'm going with father.
    Isn't there some way you could use the money without--without --"

    She gave a choked little laugh.

    "You gave me something to live for," he said.  "You kept me alive, I think
    --and I've hurt you like this!"

    "Not you--oh no!"

    "You could forgive me, Mary?"

    "Oh, a thousand times!"  Her right hand went out in a faltering gesture, and
    just touched his own for an instant.  "But there's nothing to forgive."

    "And you can't--you can't--"

    "Can't what, Bibbs?"

    "You couldn't--"

    "Marry you?" she said for him.

    "Yes."

    "No, no, no!"  She sprang up, facing him, and, without knowing what she did,
    she set her hands upon his breast, pushing him back from her a little.  "I
    can't, I can't!  Don't you SEE?"

    "Mary--"

    "No, no!  And you must go now, Bibbs; I can't bear any more--please--"

    "MARY--"

    "Never, never, never!" she cried, in a passion of tears.  "You mustn't come
    any more.  I can't see you, dear!  Never, never, never!"

    Somehow, in helpless, stumbling obedience to her beseeching gesture, he got
    himself to the door and out of the house.

    Sibyl and Roscoe were upon the point of leaving when Bibbs returned to the New
    House.  He went straight to Sibyl and spoke to her quietly, but so that the
    others might hear.

    "When you said that if I'd stop to think, I'd realize that no one would be apt
    to care enough about me to marry me, you were right," he said.  "I thought
    perhaps you weren't, and so I asked Miss Vertrees to marry me.  It proved what
    you said of me, and disproved what you said of her.  She refused."

    And, having thus spoken, he quitted the room as straightforwardly as he had
    entered it.

    "He's SO queer!" Mrs. Sheridan gasped.  "Who on earth would thought of his
    doin' THAT?"

    "I told you," said her husband, grimly.

    "You didn't tell us he'd go over there and--"

    "I told you she wouldn't have him.  I told you she wouldn't have JIM, didn't
    I?"

    Sibyl was altogether taken aback.  "Do you supose it's true?  Do you suppose
    she WOULDN'T?"

    "He didn't look exactly like a young man that had just got things fixed up
    fine with his girl," said Sheridan.  "Not to me, he didn't!"

    "But why would--"

    "I told you," he interrupted, angrily, "she ain't that kind of a girl!  If you
    got to have proof, well, I'll tell you and get it over with, though I'd pretty
    near just as soon not have to talk a whole lot about my dead boy's private
    affairs.  She wrote to Jim she couldn't take him, and it was a good, straight
    letter, too.  It came to Jim's office; he never saw it. She wrote it the
    afternoon he was hurt."

    "I remember I saw her put a letter in the mail-box that afternoon," said
    Roscoe.  "Don't you remember, Sibyl?  I told you about it--I was waiting for
    you while you were in there so long talking to her mother.  It was just before
    we saw that something was wrong over here, and Edith came and called me."

    Sibyl shook her head, but she remembered.  And she was not cast down, for,
    although some remnants of perplexity were left in her eyes, they were dimmed
    by an increasing glow of triumph; and she departed--after some further
    fragmentary discourse--visably elated.  After all, the guilty had not been
    exalted; and she perceived vaguely, but none the less surely, that her injury
    had been copiously avenged.  She bestowed a contented glance upon the old
    house with the cupola, as she and Roscoe crossed the street.

    When they had gone, Mrs. Sheridan indulged in reverie, but after a while she
    said, uneasily, "Papa, you think it would be any use to tell Bibbs about that
    letter?"

    "I don't know," he answered, walking moodily to the window.  "I been thinkin'
    about it."  He came to a decision.  "I reckon I will."  And he went up to
    Bibbs's room.

    "Well, you goin' back on what you said?" he inquired, brusquely, as he opened
    the door.  "You goin' to take it back and lay down on me again?"

    "No," said Bibbs.

    "Well, perhaps I didn't have any call to accuse you of that.  I don't know as
    you ever did go back on anything you said, exactly, though the Lord knows
    you've laid down on me enough.  You certainly have!"  Sheridan was baffled.
    This was not what he wished to say, but his words were unmanageable; he found
    himself unable to control them, and his querulous abuse went on in spite of
    him.  "I can't say I expect much of you--not from the way you always been, up
    to now--unless you turn over a new leaf, and I don't see any encouragement to
    think you're goin' to do THAT! If you go down there and show a spark o' real
    GIT-up, I reckon the whole office 'll fall in a faint.  But if you're ever
    goin' to show any, you better begin right at the beginning and begin to show
    it to-morrow."

    "Yes--I'll try."

    "You better, if it's in you!"  Sheridan was sheerly nonplussed.  He ad always
    been able to say whatever he wished to say, but his tongue seemed bewitched.
    He had come to tell Bibbs about Mary's letter, and to his own angry
    astonishment he found it impossible to do anything except to scold like a
    drudge-driver.  "You better come down there with your mind made up to hustle
    harder than the hardest workin'-man that's under you, or you'll not get on
    very good with me, I tell you!  The way to get ahead--and you better set it
    down in your books--the way to get ahead is to do ten times the work of the
    hardest worker that works FOR you.  But you don't know what work is, yet.  All
    you've ever done was just stand around and feed a machine a child could
    handle, and then come home and take a bath and go callin'.  I tell you you're
    up against a mighty different proposition now, and if you're worth your
    salt--and you never showed any signs of it yet--not any signs that stuck out
    enough  to bang somebody on the head and make 'em sit up and take
    notice--well, I want to say, right here and now--and you better listen,
    because I want to say just what I DO say.  I say--"

    He meandered to a full stop.  His mouth hung open, and his mind was a hopeless
    blank.

    Bibbs looked up patiently--an old, old look.  "Yes, father; I'm listening."

    "That's all," said Sheridan, frowning heavily.  "That's all I came to say, and
    you better see 't you remember it!"

    He shook his head warningly, and went out, closing the door behind him with a
    crash.  However, no sound of footsteps indicated his departure.  He stopped
    just outside the door, and stood there a minute or more.  Then abruptly he
    turned the knob and exhibited to his son a forehead liberally covered with
    perspiration.

    "Look here," he said, crossly.  "That girl over yonder wrote Jim a letter --"

    "I know," said Bibbs.  "She told me."

    "Well, I thought you needn't feel so much upset about it--"  The door closed
    on his voice as he withdrew, but the conclusion of the sentence was
    nevertheless audible--"if you knew she wouldn't have Jim, either."

    And he stamped his way down-stairs to tell his wife to quit her frettin' and
    not bother him with any more fool's errands.  She was about to inquire what
    Bibbs "said," but after a second thought she decided not to speak at all.  She
    merely murmured a wordless assent, and verbal communication was given over
    between them for the rest of that afternoon.

    Bibbs and his father were gone when Mrs. Sheridan woke, the next morning, and
    she had a dreary day.  She missed Edith woefully, and she worried about what
    might be taking place in the Sheridan Building.  She felt that everything
    depended on how Bibbs "took hold," and upon her husband's return in the
    evening she seized upon the first opportunity to ask him how things had gone.
    He was non-committal.  What could anybody tell by the first day?  He'd seen
    plenty go at things well enough right at the start and then blow up.  Pretty
    near anybody could show up fair the first day or so.  There was a big job
    ahead.  This material, such as it was--Bibbs, in fact--had to be broken in to
    handling the work Roscoe had done; and then, at least as an overseer, he must
    take Jim's position in the Realty Company as well.  He told her to ask him
    again in a month.

    But during the course of dinner she gathered from some disjointed remarks of
    his that he and Bibbs had lunched together at the small restaurant where it
    had been Sheridan's custom to lunch with Jim, and she took this to be an
    encouraging sign.  Bibbs went to his room as soon as they left the table, and
    her husband was not communicative after reading his paper.

    She became an anxious spectator of Bibbs's progress as a man of business,
    although it was a progress she could glimpse but dimly and only in the
    evening, through his remarks and his father's at dinner.  Usually Bibbs was
    silent, except when directly addressed, but on the first evening of the third
    week of his new career he offered an opinion which had apparently been the
    subject of previous argument.

    "I'd like you to understand just what I meant about those storage-rooms,
    father," he said, as Jackson placed his coffee before him.  "Abercrombie
    agreed with me, but you wouldn't listen to him."

    "You can talk, if you want to, and I'll listen," Sheridan returned, "but you
    can't show me that Jim ever took up with a bad thing.  The roof fell because
    it hadn't had time to settle and on account of weather conditions.  I want
    that building put just the way Jim planned it."

    "You can't have it," said Bibbs.  "You can't, because Jim planned for the
    building to stand up, and it won't do it.  The other one--the one that didn't
    fall--is so shot with cracks we haven't dared use it for storage. It won't
    stand weight.  There's only one thing to do: get both buildings down as
    quickly as we can, and build over.  Brick's the best and cheapest in the long
    run for that type."

    Sheridan looked sarcastic.  "Fine!  What we goin' to do for storage-rooms
    while we're waitin' for those few bricks to be laid?"

    "Rent," Bibbs returned, promptly.  "We'll lose money if we don't rent,
    anyhow--they were waiting so long for you to give the warehouse matter your
    attention after the roof fell.  You don't know what an amount of stuff they've
    got piled up on us over there.  We'd have to rent until we could patch up
    those process perils--and the Krivitch Manufacturing Company's plant is empty,
    right across the street.  I took an option on it for us this morning."

    Sheridan's expression was queer.  "Look here!" he said, sharply.  "Did you go
    and do that without consulting me?"

    "It didn't cost anything," said Bibbs.  "It's only until to-morrow afternoon
    at two o'clock.  I undertook to convince you before then."

    "Oh, you did?"  Sheridan's tone was sardonic.  "Well, just suppose you
    couldn't convince me."

    "I can, though--and I intend to," said Bibbs, quietly.  "I don't think you
    understand the condition of those buildings you want patched up."

    "Now, see here," said Sheridan, with slow emphasis; "suppose I had my mind set
    about this.  JIM thought they'd stand, and suppose it was--well, kind of a
    matter of sentiment with me to prove he was right."

    Bibbs looked at him compassionately.  "I'm sorry if you have a sentiment about
    it, father," he said.  "But whether you have or not can't make a difference.
    You'll get other people hurt if you trust that process, and that won't do.
    And if you want a monument to Jim, at least you want one that will stand.
    Besides, I don't think you can reasonably defend sentiment in this particular
    kind of affair."

    "Oh, you don't?"

    "No, but I'm sorry you didn't tell me you felt it."

    Sheridan was puzzled by his son's tone.  "Why are you 'sorry'?" he asked,
    curiously.

    "Because I had the building inspector up there, this noon," said Bibbs, "and I
    had him condemn both those buildings."

    "What?"

    "He'd been afraid to do it before, until he heard from us--afraid you'd see he
    lost his job.  But he can't un-condemn them--they've got to come down now."

    Sheridan gave him a long and piercing stare from beneath lowered brows.
    Finally he said, "How long did they give you on that option to convince me?"

    "Until two o'clock to-morrow afternoon."

    "All right," said Sheridan, not relaxing.  "I'm convinced."

    Bibbs jumped up.  "I thought you would be.  I'll telephone the Krivitch agent.
    He gave me the option until to-morrow, but I told him I'd settle it this
    evening."

    Sheridan gazed after him as he left the room, and then, though his expression
    did not alter in the slightest, a sound came from him that startled his wife.
    It had been a long time since she had heard anything resembling a chuckle from
    him, and this sound--although it was grim and dry--bore that resemblance.

    She brightened eagerly.  "Looks like he was startin' right well, don't it,
    papa?"

    "Startin'?  Lord!  He got me on the hip!  Why, HE knew what I wanted-- that's
    why he had the inspector up there, so 't he'd have me beat before we even
    started to talk about it.  And did you hear him?  'Can't reasonably defend
    SENTIMENT!'  And the way he says 'Us': 'Took an option for Us'!  'Stuff piled
    up on Us'!"

    There was always an alloy for Mrs. sheridan.  "I don't just like the way he
    looks, though, papa."

    "Oh, there's got to be something!  Only one chick left at home, so you start
    to frettin' about IT!"

    "No.  He's changed.  There's kind of a settish look to his face, and--"

    "I guess that's the common sense comin' out on him, then," said Sheridan.
    "You'll see symptoms like that in a good many business men, I expect."

    "Well, and he don't have as good color as he was gettin' before.  And he'd
    begun to fill out some, but--"

    Sheridan gave forth another dry chuckle, and, going round the table to her,
    patted her upon the shoulder with his left hand, his right being still heavily
    bandaged, though he no longer wore a sling.  "That's the way it is with you,
    mamma--got to take your frettin' out one way if you don't another!"

    "No.  He don't look well.  It ain't exactly the way he looked when he begun to
    get sick that time, but he kind o' seems to be losin', some way."

    "Yes, he may 'a' lost something," said Sheridan.  "I expect he's lost a whole
    lot o' foolishness besides his God-forsaken notions about writin' poetry
    and--"

    "No," his wife persisted.  "I mean he looks right peakid.  And yesterday, when
    he was settin' with us, he kept lookin' out the window.  He wasn't readin'."

    "Well, why shouldn't he look out the window?"

    "He was lookin' over there.  He never read a word all afternoon, I don't
    believe."

    "Look, here!" said Sheridan.  "Bibbs might 'a' kept goin' on over there the
    rest of his life, moonin' on and on, but what he heard Sibyl say did one big
    thing, anyway.  It woke him up out of his trance.  Well, he had to go and bust
    clean out with a bang; and that stopped his goin' over there, and it stopped
    his poetry, but I reckon he's begun to get pretty fair pay for what he lost.
    I guess a good many young men have had to get over worries like his; they got
    to lose SOMETHING if they're goin' to keep ahead o' the procession
    nowadays--and it kind o' looks to me, mamma, like Bibbs might keep quite a
    considerable long way ahead.  Why, a year from now I'll bet you he won't know
    there ever WAS such a thing as poetry! And ain't he funny?  He wanted to stick
    to the shop so's he could 'think'! What he meant was, think about something
    useless.  Well, I guess he's keepin' his ming pretty occupied the other way
    these days.  Yes, sir, it took a pretty fair-sized shock to get him out of his
    trance, but it certainly did the business."  He patted his wife's shoulder
    again, and then, without any prefatory symptoms, broke into a boisterous
    laugh.

    "Honest, mamma, he works like a gorilla!"

    And so Bibbs sat in the porch of the temple with the money-changers.  But no
    One came to scourge him forth, for this was the temple of Bigness, and the
    changing of money was holy worship and true religion.  The priests wore that
    "settish" look Bibbs's mother had seen beginning to develop about his mouth
    and eyes--a wary look which she could not define, but it comes with service at
    the temple; and it was the more marked upon Bibbs for his sharp awakening to
    the necessities of that servicce.

    He did as little "useless" thinking as possible, giving himself no time for
    it.  He worked continuously, keeping his thoughts still on his work when he
    came home at night; and he talked of nothing whatever except his work.  But he
    did not sing at it.  He was often in the streets, and people were not allowed
    to sing in the streets.  They might make any manner of hideous uproar--they
    could shake buildings; they could out-thunder the thunder, deafen the deaf,
    and kill the sick with noise; or they could walk the streets or drive through
    them bawling, squawking, or screeching, as they chose, if the noise was
    traceably connected with business; though street musicians were not tolerated,
    being considered a nuisance and an interference.  A man or woman who went
    singing for pleasure through the streets--like a crazy Neopolitan--would have
    been stopped, and belike locked up; for Freedom does not mean that a citizen
    is allowed to do every outrageous thing that comes into his head.  The streets
    were dangerous enough, in all conscience, without any singing! and the Motor
    Federation issued public warnings declaring that the pedestrian's life was in
    his own hands, and giving directions how to proceed with the least peril.
    However, Bibbs Sheridan had no desire to sing in the streets, or anywhere. He
    had gone to his work with an energy that, for the start, at least, was bitter,
    and there was no song left in him.

    He began to know his active fellow-citizens.  Here and there among them he
    found a leisurely, kind soul, a relic of the old period of neighborliness,
    "pioneer stock," usually; and there were men--particularly among the merchants
    and manufacturers--"so honest they leaned backward"; reputations sometimes
    attested by stories of heroic sacrifices to honor; nor were there lacking some
    instances of generosity even nobler.  Here and there, too, were book-men, in
    their little leisure; and, among the Germans, music-men.  And these, with the
    others, worshiped Bigness and the growth, each man serving for his own sake
    and for what he could get out of it, but all united in their faith in the
    beneficence and glory of their god.

    To almost all alike that service stood as the most important thing in life,
    except on occasion of some such vital, brief interregnum as the dangerous
    illness of a wife or child.  In the way of "relaxation" some of the servers
    took golf; some took fishing; some took "shows"--a mixture of infantile and
    negroid humor, stockings, and tin music; some took an occasional debauch; some
    took trips; some took cards; and some took nothing.  The high priests were
    vigilant to watch that no "relaxation" should affect the service.  When a man
    attended to anything outside his business, eyes were upon him; his credit was
    in danger--that is, his life was in danger.  And the old priests were as
    ardent as the young ones; the million was as eager to be bigger as the
    thousand; seventy was as busy as seventeen.  They stove mightily against one
    another, and the old priests were the most wary, the most plausible, and the
    most dangerous. Bibbs learned he must walk charily among these--he must wear a
    thousand eyes and beware of spiders indeed!

    And outside the temple itself were the pretenders, the swarming thieves and
    sharpers and fleecers, the sly rascals and the open rascals; but these were
    feeble folk, not dangerous once he knew them, and he had a good guide to point
    them out to him.  They were useful sometimes, he learned, and many of them
    served as go-betweens in matters where business must touch politics.  He
    learned also how breweries and "traction" companies and banks and other
    institutions fought one another for the political control of the city.  The
    newspapers, he discovered, had lost their ancient political influence,
    especially with the knowing, who looked upon them with a skeptical humor,
    believing the journals either to be retained partisans, like lawyers, or else
    striving to forward the personal ambitions of their owners.  The control of
    the city lay not with them, but was usually obtained by giving the hordes of
    negroes gin-money, and by other largesses.  The revenues of the people were
    then distributed as fairly as possible among a great number of men who had
    assisted the winning side.  Names and titles of offices went with many of the
    prizes, and most of these title-holders were expected to present a busy
    appearance at times; and, indeed, some among them did work honestly and
    faithfully.

    Bibbs had been very ignorant.  All these simple things, so well known and
    customary, astonished him at first, and once--in a brief moment of forgetting
    that he was done with writing--he thought that if he had known them and
    written of them, how like a satire the plainest relation of them must have
    seemed!  Strangest of all to him was the vehement and sincere patriotism.  On
    every side he heard it--it was a permeation; the newest school-child caught
    it, though just from Hungary and learning to stammer a few words of the local
    language.  Everywhere the people shouted of the power, the size, the riches,
    and the growth of their city.  Not only that, they said that the people of
    their city were the greatest, the "finest," the strongest, the Biggest people
    on earth.  They cited no authorities, and felt the need of none, being
    themselves the people thus celebrated.  And if the thing was questioned, or if
    it was hinted that there might be one small virtue in which they were not
    perfect and supreme, they wasted no time examining themselves to see if what
    the critic said was true, but fell upon him and hooted him and cursed him, for
    they were sensitive.  So Bibbs, learning their ways and walking with them,
    harkened to the voice of the people and served Bigness with them.  For the
    voice of the people is the voice of their god.

    Sheridan had made the room next to his own into an office for Bibbs, and the
    door between the two rooms usually stood open--the father had established that
    intimacy.  One morning in February, when Bibbs was alone, Sheridan came in,
    some sheets of typewritten memoranda in his hand.

    "Bibbs," he said, "I don't like to butt in very often this way, and when I do
    I usually wish I hadn't--but for Heaven's sake what have you been buying that
    ole busted inter-traction stock for?"

    Bibbs leaned back from his desk.  "For eleven hundred and fifty-five dollars.
    That's all it cost."

    "Well, it ain't worth eleven hundred and fifty-five cents.  You ought to know
    that.  I don't get your idea.  That stuff's deader 'n Adam's cat!"

    "It might be worth something--some day."

    "How?"

    "It mightn't be so dead--not if We went into it," said Bibbs, coolly.

    "Oh!"  Sheridan considered this musingly; then he said, "Who'd you buy it
    from?"

    "A broker--Fansmith."

    "Well, he must 'a' got it from one o' the crowd o' poor ninnies that was
    soaked with it.  Don't you know who owned it?"

    "Yes, I do."

    "Ain't sayin', though?  That it?  What's the matter?"

    "It belonged to Mr. Vertrees," said Bibbs, shortly, applying himself to his
    desk.

    "So!"  Sheridan gazed down at his son's thin face.  "Excuse me," he said.
    "Your business."  And he went back to his own room.  But presently he looked
    in again.

    "I reckon you won't mind lunchin' alone to-day"--he was shuffling himself into
    his overcoat--"because I just thought I'd go up to the house and get THIS over
    with mamma."  He glanced apologetically toward his right hand as it emerged
    from the sleeve of the overcoat.  The bandages had been removed, finally, that
    morning, revealing but three fingers-- the forefinger and the finger next to
    it had been amputated.  "She's bound to make an awful fuss, and it better
    spoil her lunch than her dinner. I'll be back about two."

    But he calculated the time of his arrival at the New House so accurately that
    Mrs. Sheridan's lunch was not disturbed, and she was rising from the lonely
    table when he came into the dining-room.  He had left his overcoat in the
    hall, but he kept his hands in his trousers pockets.

    "What's the matter, papa?" she asked, quickly.  "Has anything gone wrong? You
    ain't sick?"

    "Me!"  He laughed loudly.  "Me SICK?"

    "You had lunch?"

    "Didn't want any to-day.  You can give me a cup o' coffe, though."

    She rang, and told George to have coffee made, and when he had withdrawn she
    said querulously, "I just know there's something wrong."

    "Nothin' in the world," he responed, heartily, taking a seat at the head of
    the table.  "I thought I'd talk over a notion o' mine with you, that's all.
    It's more women-folks' business than what it is man's, anyhow."

    "What about?"

    "Why, ole Doc Gurney was up at the office this morning awhile--"

    "To look at your hand?  How's he say it's doin'?"

    "Fine!  Well, he went in and sat around with Bibbs awhile--"

    Mrs. Sheridan nodded pessimistically.  "I guess it's time you had him, too.  I
    KNEW Bibbs--"

    "Now, mamma, hold your horses!  I wanted him to look Bibbs over BEFORE
    anything's the matter.  You don't suppose I'm goin' to take any chances with
    BIBBS, do you?  Well, afterwards, I shut the door, and I an' ole Gurney had a
    talk.  He's a mighty disagreeable man; he rubbed it in on me what he said
    about Bibbs havin' brains if he ever woke up.  Then I thought he must want to
    get something out o' me, he go so flattering--for a minute!  'Bibbs couldn't
    help havin' business brains,' he says, 'bein' YOUR son.  Don't be surprised,'
    he says--'don't be surprised at his makin' a success,' he says.  'He couldn't
    get over his heredity; he couldn't HELP bein' a business success--once you got
    him into it.  It's in his blood.  Yes, sir' he says, 'it doesn't need MUCH
    brains,' he says, 'an only third-rate brains, at that,' he says, 'but it does
    need a special KIND o' brains,' he says, 'to be a millionaire.  I mean,' he
    says, 'when a man's given a start.  If nobody gives him a start, why, course
    he's got to have luck AND the right kind o' brains.  The only miracle about
    Bibbs,' he says, 'is where he got the OTHER kind o' brains--the brains you
    made him quit usin' and throw away.'"

    "But what'd he say about his health?" Mrs. Sheridan demanded, impatiently, as
    George placed a cup of coffee before her husband.  Sheridan helped himself to
    cream and sugar, and began to sip the coffee.

    "I'm comin' to that," he returned, placidly.  "See how easy I manage this cup
    with my left hand, mamma?"

    "You been doin' that all winter.  What did--"

    "It's wonderful," he interrupted, admiringly, "what a fellow can do with his
    left hand.  I can sign my name with mine now, well's I ever could with my
    right.  It came a little hard at first, but now, honest, I believe I RATHER
    sign with my left. That's all I ever have to write, anyway--just the
    signature.  Rest's all dictatin'."  He blew across the top of the cup
    unctuously.  "Good coffee, mamma!  Well, about Bibbs.  Ole Gurney says he
    believes if Bibbs could somehow get back to the state o' mind he was in about
    the machine-shop--that is, if he could some way get to feelin' about business
    the way he felt about the shop--not the poetry and writin' part, but--"  He
    paused, supplementing his remarks with a motion of his head toward the old
    house next door.  "He says Bibbs is older and harder 'n what he was when he
    broke down that time, and besides, he ain't the kind o' dreamy way he was
    then--and I should say he AIN'T!  I'd like 'em to show ME anybody his age
    that's any wider awake!  But he says Bibbs's health never need bother us again
    if--"

    Mrs. Sheridan shook her head.  "I don't see any help THAT way.  You know
    yourself she wouldn't have Jim."

    "Who's talkin' about her havin' anybody?  But, my Lord! she might let him LOOK
    at her!  She needn't 'a' got so mad, just because he asked her, that she won't
    let him come in the house any more.  He's a mighty funny boy, and some ways I
    reckon he's pretty near as hard to understand as the Bible, but Gurney kind o'
    got me in the way o' thinkin' that if she'd let him come back and set around
    with her an evening or two sometimes--not reg'lar, I don't mean--why--Well, I
    just thought I'd see what YOU'D think of it.  There ain't any way to talk
    about it to Bibbs himself--I don't suppose he'd let you, anyhow--but I thought
    maybe you could kind o' slip over there some day, and sort o' fix up to have a
    little talk with her, and kind o' hint around till you see how the land lays,
    and ask her --"

    "ME!"  Mrs. Sheridan looked both helpless and frightened.  "No."  She shook
    her head decidedly.  "It wouldn't do any good."

    "You won't try it?"

    "I won't risk her turnin' me out o' the house.  Some way, that's what I
    believe she did to Sibyl, from what Roscoe said once.  No, I CAN'T--and,
    what's more, it 'd only make things worse.  If people find out you're runnin'
    after 'em they think you're cheap, and then they won't do as much for you as
    if you let 'em alone.  I don't believe it's any use, and I couldn't do it if
    it was."

    He sighed with resignation.  "All right, mamma.  That's all."  Then, in a
    livelier tone, he said: "Ole Gurney took the bandages off my hand this
    morning.  All healed up.  Says I don't need 'em any more."

    "Why, that's splendid, papa!" she cried, beaming.  "I was afraid--Let's see."

    She came toward him, but he rose, still keeping his hand in his pocket. "Wait
    a minute," he said, smiling.  "Now it may give you just a teeny bit of a
    shock, but the fact is--well, you remember that Sunday when Sibyl came over
    here and made all that fuss about nothin'--it was the day after I got tired o'
    that statue when Edith's telegram came--"

    "Let me see your hand!" she cried.

    "Now wait!" he said, laughing and pushing her away with his left hand. "The
    truth is, mamma, that I kind o' slipped out on you that morning, when you
    wasn't lookin', and went down to ole Gurney's office--he'd told me to, you
    see--and, well, it doesn't AMOUNT to anything."  And he held out, for her
    inspection, the mutilated hand.  "You see, these days when it's all dictatin',
    anyhow, nobody 'd mind just a couple o'--"

    He had to jump for her--she went over backward.  For the second time in her
    life Mrs. Sheridan fainted.

    It was a full hour later when he left her lying upon a couch in her own room,
    still lamenting intermittently, though he assured her with heat that the
    "fuss" she was making irked him far more than his physical loss.  He permitted
    her to think that he meant to return directly to his office, but when he came
    out to the open air he told the chauffeur in attendance to await him in front
    of Mr. Vertrees's house, whither he himself proceeded on foot.

    Mr. Vertrees had taken the sale of half of his worthless stock as manna in the
    wilderness; it came from heaven--by what agency he did not particularly
    question.  The broker informed him that "parties were interested in getting
    hold of the stock," and that later there might be a possible increase in the
    value of the large amount retained by his client. It might go "quite a ways
    up" within a year or so, he said, and he advised "sitting tight" with it.  Mr.
    Vertrees went home and prayed.

    He rose from his knees feeling that he was surely coming into his own again.
    It was more than a mere gasp of temporary relief with him, and his wife shared
    his optimism; but Mary would not let him buy back her piano, and as for
    furs--spring was on the way, she said.  But they paid the butcher, the baker,
    and the candlestick-maker, and hired a cook once more. It was this servitress
    who opened the door for Sheridan and presently assured him that Miss Vertrees
    would "be down."

    He was not the man to conceal admiration when he felt it, and he flushed and
    beamed as Mary made her appearance, almost upon the heels of the cook. She had
    a look of apprehension for the first fraction of a second, but it vanished at
    the sight of him, and its place was taken in her eyes by a soft brilliance,
    while color rushed in her cheeks.

    "Don't be surprised," he said.  "Truth is, in a way it's sort of on business I
    looked in here.  It 'll only take a minute, I expect."

    "I'm sorry," said Mary.  "I hoped you'd come because we're neighbors."

    He chuckled.  "Neighbors!  Sometimes people don't see so much o' their
    neighbors as they used to.  That is, I hear so--lately."

    "You'll stay long enough to sit down, won't you?"

    "I guess I could manage that much."  And they sat down, facing each other and
    not far apart.

    "Of course, it couldn't be called business, exactly," he said, more gravely.
    "Not at all, I expect.  But there's something o' yours it seemed to me I ought
    to give you, and I just thought it was better to bring it myself and explain
    how I happened to have it.  It's this--this letter you wrote my boy."  He
    extended the letter to her solomnly, in his left hand, and she took it gently
    from him.  "It was in his mail, after he was hurt.  You knew he never got it,
    I expect."

    "Yes," she said, in a low voice.

    He sighed.  "I'm glad he didn't.  Not," he added, quickly--"not but what you
    did just right to send it.  You did.  You couldn't acted any other way when it
    came right down TO it.  There ain't any blame comin' to you--you were
    above-board all through."

    Mary said, "Thank you," almost in a whisper, and with her head bowed low.

    "You'll have to excuse me for readin' it.  I had to take charge of all his
    mail and everything; I didn't know the handwritin', and I read it all-- once I
    got started."

    "I'm glad you did."

    "Well"--he leaned forward as if to rise--"I guess that's about all.  I just
    thought you ought to have it."

    "Thank you for bringing it."

    He looked at her hopefully, as if he thought and wished that she might have
    something more to say.  But she seemed not to be aware of this glance, and sat
    with her eyes fixed sorrowfully upon the floor.

    "Well, I expect I better be gettin' back to the office," he said, rising
    desperately.  "I told--I told my partner I'd be back at two o'clock, and I
    guess he'll think I'm a poor business man if he catches me behind time. I got
    to walk the chalk a mighty straight line these days--with THAT fellow keepin'
    tabs on me!"

    Mary rose with him.  "I've always heard YOU were the hard driver."

    He guffawed derisively.  "Me?  I'm nothin' to that partner o' mine.  You
    couldn't guess to save your life how he keeps after me to hold up my end o'
    the job.  I shouldn't be surprised he'd give me the grand bounce some day, and
    run the whole circus by himself.  You know how he is--once he goes AT a
    thing!"

    "No," she smiled.  "I didn't know you had a partner.  I'd always heard--"

    He laughed, looking away from her.  "It's just my way o' speakin' o' that boy
    o' mine, Bibbs."

    He stood then, expectant, staring out into the hall with an air of careless
    geniality.  He felt that she certainly must at least say, "How   IS Bibbs?"
    but she said nothing at all, though he waited until the silence became
    embarrassing.

    "Well, I guess I better be gettin' down there," he said, at last.  "He might
    worry."

    "Good-by--and thank you," said Mary.

    "For what?"

    "For the letter."

    "Oh," he said, blankly.  "You're welcome.  Good-by."

    Mary put out her hand.  "Good-by."

    "You'll have to excuse my left hand," he said.  "I had a little accident to
    the other one."

    She gave a pitying cry as she saw.  "Oh, poor Mr. Sheridan!"

    "Nothin' at all!  Dictate everything nowadays, anyhow."  He laughed jovially.
    "Did anybody tell you how it happened?"

    "I heard you hurt your hand, but no--not just how."

    "It was this way," he began, and both, as if unconsciously, sat down again.
    "You may not know it, but I used to worry a good deal about the youngest o' my
    boys--the one that used to come to see you sometimes, after Jim--that is, I
    mean Bibbs.  He's the one I spoke of as my partner; and the truth is that's
    what it's just about goin' to amount to, one o' these days--if his health
    holds out.  Well, you remember, I expect, I had him on a machine over at a
    plant o' mine; and sometimes I'd kind o' sneak in there and see how he was
    gettin' along.  Take a doctor with me sometimes, because Bibbs never WAS so
    robust, you might say.  Ole Doc Gurney--I guess maybe you know him?  Tall,
    thin man; acts sleepy--"

    "Yes."

    "Well, one day I an' ole Doc Gurney, we were in there, and I undertook to show
    Bibbs how to run his machine.  He told me to look out, but I wouldn't listen,
    and I didn't look out--and that's how I got my hand hurt, tryin' to show Bibbs
    how to do something he knew how to do and I didn't.  Made me so mad I just
    wouldn't even admit to myself it WAS hurt--and so, by and by, ole Doc Gurney
    had to take kind o' radical measures with me.  He's a right good doctor, too.
    Don't you think so, Miss Vertrees?"

    "Yes."

    "Yes, he is so!"  Sheridan now had the air of a rambling talker and gossip
    with all day on his hands.  "Take him on Bibbs's case.  I was talkin' about
    Bibbs's case with him this morning.  Well, you'd laugh to hear the way ole
    Gurney talks about THAT!  'Course he IS just as much a friend as he is
    doctor--and he takes as much interest in Bibbs as if he was in the family.  He
    says Bibbs isn't anyways bad off YET; and he thinks he could stand the pace
    and get fat on it if--well, this is what'd made YOU laugh if you'd been there,
    Miss Vertrees--honest it would!"  He paused to chuckle, and stole a glance at
    her.  She was gazing straight before her at the wall; her lips were parted,
    and--visibly--she was breathing heavily and quickly.  He feared that she was
    growing furiously angry; but he had led to what he wanted to say, and he went
    on, determined now to say it all.  He leaned forward and altered his voice to
    one of confidential friendliness, though in it he still maintained a tone
    which indicated that ole Doc Gurney's opinion was only a joke he shared with
    her.  "Yes, sir, you certainly would 'a' laughed!  Why, that ole man thinks
    YOU got something to do with it.  You'll have to blame it on him, young lady,
    if it makes you feel like startin' out to whip somebody!  He's actually got
    THIS theory: he says Bibbs got to gettin' better while he worked over there at
    the shop because you kept him cheered up and feelin' good.  And he says if you
    could manage to just stand him hangin' around a little-- maybe not much, but
    just SOMEtimes--again, he believed it 'd do Bibbs a mighty lot o' good.
    'Course, that's only what the doctor said.  Me, I don't know anything about
    that; but I can say this much--I never saw any such a MENTAL improvement in
    anybody in my life as I have lately in Bibbs. I expect you'd find him a good
    deal more entertaining than what he used to be--and I know it's a kind of
    embarrassing thing to suggest after the way he piled in over here that day to
    ask you to stand up before the preacher with him, but accordin' to ole Doc
    GURNEY, he's got you on his brain so bad--"

    Mary jumped.  "Mr. Sheridan!" she exclaimed.

    He sighed profoundly.  "There!  I noticed you were gettin' mad.  I didn't --"

    "No, no, no!" she cried.  "But I don't understand--and I think you don't.
    What is it you want me to do?"

    He sighed again, but this time with relief.  "Well, well!" he said. "You're
    right.  It 'll be easier to talk plain.  I ought to known I could with you,
    all the time.  I just hoped you'd let that boy come and see you sometimes,
    once more.  Could you?"

    "You don't understand."  She clasped her hands together in a sorrowful
    gesture.  "Yes, we must talk plain.  Bibbs heard that I'd tried to make your
    oldest son care for me because I was poor, and so Bibbs came and asked me to
    marry him--because he was sorry for me.  And I CAN'T see him any more," she
    cried in distress.  "I CAN'T!"

    Sheridan cleared his throat uncomfortably.  "You mean because he thought that
    about you?"

    "No, no!  What he thought was TRUE!"

    "Well--you mean he was so much in--you mean he thought so much of you --"  The
    words were inconceivably awkward upon Sheridan's tongue; he seemed to be in
    doubt even about pronouncing them, but after a ghastly pause he bravely
    repeated them.  "You mean he thought so much of you that you just couldn't
    stand him around?"

    "NO!  He was sorry for me.  He cared for me; he was fond of me; and he'd
    respected me--too much!  In the finest way he loved me, if you like, and he'd
    have done anything on earth for me, as I would for him, and as he knew I
    would.  It was beautiful, Mr. Sheridan," she said.  "But the cheap, bad things
    one has done seem always to come back--they wait, and pull you down when
    you're happiest.  Bibbs found me out, you see; and he wasn't 'in love' with me
    at all."

    "He wasn't?  Well, it seems to me he gave up everything he wanted to do-- it
    was fool stuff, but he certainly wanted it mighty bad--he just threw it away
    and walked right up and took the job he swore he never would-- just for you.
    And it looks to me as if a man that'd do that must think quite a heap o' the
    girl he does it for!  You say it was only because he was sorry, but let me
    tell you there's only ONE girl he could feel THAT sorry for!  Yes, sir!"

    "No, no," she said.  "Bibbs isn't like other men--he would do anything for
    anybody."

    Sheridan grinned.  "Perhaps not so much as you think, nowadays," he said. "For
    instance, I got kind of a suspicion he doesn't believe in 'sentiment in
    business.'  But that's neither here nor there.  What he wanted was, just plain
    and simple, for you to marry him.  Well, I was afraid his thinkin' so much OF
    you had kind o' sickened you of him--the way it does sometimes.  But from the
    way you talk, I understand that ain't the trouble."  He coughed, and his voice
    trembled a little.  "Now here, Miss Vertrees, I don't have to tell
    you--because you see things easy--I know I got no business comin' to you like
    this, but I had to make Bibbs go my way instead of his own--I had to do it for
    the sake o' my business and on his own account, too--and I expect you got some
    idea how it hurt him to give up.  Well, he's made good.  He didn't come in
    half-hearted or mean; he came in--all the way!  But there isn't anything in it
    to him; you can see he's just shut his teeth on it and goin' ahead with dust
    in his mouth.  You see, one way of lookin' at it, he's got nothin' to work
    FOR.  And it seems to me like it cost him your friendship, and I believe
    --honest--that's what hurt him the worst.  Now you said we'd talk plain.  Why
    can't you let him come back?"

    She covered her face desperately with her hands.  "I can't!"

    He rose, defeated, and looking it.

    "Well, I mustn't press you," he said, gently.

    At that she cried out, and dropped her hands and let him see her face. "Ah!
    He was only sorry for me!"

    He gazed at her intently.  Mary was proud, but she had a fatal honesty, and it
    confessed the truth of her now; she was helpless.  It was so clear that even
    Sheridan, marveling and amazed, was able to see it.  Then a change came over
    him; gloom fell from him, and he grew radient.

    "Don't!  Don't" she cried.  "You mustn't--"

    "I won't tell him," said Sheridan, from the doorway.  "I won't tell anybody
    anything!"

    There was a heavy town-fog that afternoon, a smoke-mist, densest in the
    sanctuary of the temple.  The people went about in it, busy and dirty,
    thickening their outside and inside linings of coal-tar, asphalt, sulphurous
    acid, oil of vitriol, and the other familiar things the men liked to breathe
    and to have upon their skins and garments and upon their wives and babies and
    sweethearts.  The growth of the city was visible in the smoke and the noise
    and the rush.  There was more smoke than there had been this day of February a
    year earlier; there was more noise; and the crowds were thicker--yet quicker
    in spite of that.  The traffic policeman had a hard time, for the people were
    independent--they retained some habits of the old market-town period, and
    would cross the street anywhere and anyhow, which not only got them killed
    more frequently than if they clung to the legal crossings, but kept the
    motormen, the chauffeurs, and the truck-drivers in a stew of profane
    nervousness.  So the traffic policemen led harried lives; they themselves were
    killed, of course, with a certain periodicity, but their main trouble was that
    they could not make the citizens realize that it was actually and mortally
    perilous to go about their city.  It was strange, for there were probably no
    citizens of any length of residence who had not personally known either some
    one who had been killed or injured in an accident, or some one who had
    accidentally killed or injured others.  And yet, perhaps it was not strange,
    seeing the sharp preoccupation of the faces--the people had something on their
    minds; they could not stop to bother about dirt and danger.

    Mary Vertrees was not often down-town; she had never seen an accident until
    this afternoon.  She had come upon errands for her mother connected with a
    timorous refurbishment; and as she did these, in and out of the department
    stores, she had an insistent consciousness of the Sheridan Building.  From the
    street, anywhere, it was almost always in sight, like some monstrous
    geometrical shadow, murk-colored and rising limitlessly into the swimming
    heights of the smoke-mist.  It was gaunt and grimy and repellent; it had
    nothing but strength and size--but in that consciousness of Mary's the great
    structure may have partaken of beauty. Sheridan had made some of the things he
    said emphatic enought to remain with her.  She went over and over them--and
    they began to seem true: "Only ONE girl he could feel THAT sorry for!"
    "Gurney says he's got you on his brain so bad--"  The man's clumsy talk began
    to sing in her heart. The song was begun there when she saw the accident.

    She was directly opposite the Sheridan Building then, waiting for the traffic
    to thin before she crossed, though other people were risking the passage,
    darting and halting and dodging parlously.  Two men came from the crowd behind
    her, talking earnestly, and started across.  Both wore black; one was tall and
    broad and thick, and the other was taller, but noticeably slender.  And Mary
    caught her breath, for they were Bibbs and his father. They did not see her,
    and she caught a phrase in Bibbs's mellow voice, which had taken a crisper
    ring: "Sixty-eight thousand dollars?  Not sixty-eight thousand buttons!"  It
    startled her queerly, and as there was a glimpse of his profile she saw for
    the first time a resemblance to his father.

    She watched them.  In the middle of the street Bibbs had to step ahead of his
    father, and the two were separated.  But the reckless passing of a truck,
    beyond the second line of rails, frightened a group of country women who were
    in course of passage; they were just in front of Bibbs, and shoved backward
    upon him violently.  To extricate himself from them he stepped back, directly
    in front of a moving trolley-car--no place for absent-mindedness, but Bibbs
    was still absorbed in thoughts concerned with what he had been saying to his
    father.  There were shrieks and yells; Bibbs looked the wrong way--and then
    Mary saw the heavy figure of Sheridan plunge straight forward in front of the
    car.  With absolute disregard of his own life, he hurled himself at Bibbs like
    a football-player shunting off an opponent, and to Mary it seemed that they
    both went down together.  But that was all she could see--automobiles, trucks,
    and wagons closed in between.  She made out that the trolley-car stopped
    jerkily, and she saw a policeman breaking his way through the instantly
    condensing crowd, while the traffic came to a standstill, and people stood up
    in automobiles or climbed upon the hubs and tires of wheels, not to miss a
    chance of seeing anything horrible.

    Mary tried to get through; it was impossible.  Other policemen came to help
    the first, and in a minute or two the traffic was in motion again. The crowd
    became pliant, dispersing--there was no figure upon the ground, and no
    ambulance came.  But one of the policemen was detained by the clinging and
    beseeching of a gloved hand.

    "What IS the matter, lady?"

    "Where are they?" Mary cried.

    "Who? Ole man Sheridan?  I reckon HE wasn't much hurt!"

    "His SON--"

    "Was that who the other one was?  I seen him knock him--oh, he's not bad off,
    I guess, lady.  The ole man got him out of the way all right.  The fender
    shoved the ole man around some, but I reckon he only got shook up. They both
    went on in the Sheridan Building without any help.  Excuse me, lady."

    Sheridan and Bibbs, in fact, were at that moment in the elevator, ascending.
    "Whisk-broom up in the office," Sheridan was saying.  "You got to look out on
    those corners nowadays, I tell you.  I don't know I got any call to blow,
    though--because I tried to cross after you did.  That's how I happened to run
    into you.  Well, you want remember to look out after this.  We were talkin'
    about Murtrie's askin' sixty-eight thousand flat for that ninety-nine-year
    lease.  It's his lookout if he'd rather take it that way, and I don't know
    but--"

    "No," said Bibbs, emphatically, as the elevator stopped; "he won't get it. Not
    from Us, he won't, and I'll show you why.  I can convince you in five
    minutes."  He followed his father into the office anteroom--and convinced him.
    Then, having been diligently brushed by a youth of color, Bibbs went into his
    own room and closed the door.

    He was more shaken than he had allowed his father to perceive, and his side
    was sore where Sheridan had struck him.  He desired to be alone; he wanted to
    rub himself and, for once, to do some useless thinking again. He knew that his
    father had not "happened" to run into him; he knew that Sheridan had
    instantly--and instinctively--proved that he held his own life of no account
    whatever compared to that of his son and heir.  Bibbs had been unable to speak
    of that, or to seem to know it; for Sheridan, just as instinctively, had swept
    the matter aside--as of no importance, since all was well--reverting
    immediately to business.

    Bibbs began to think intently of his father.  He perceived, as he had never
    perceived before, the shadowing of something enormous and indomitable--and
    lawless; not to be daunted by the will of nature's very self; laughing at the
    lightning and at wounds and mutilation; conquering, irresistible--and blindly
    noble.  For the first time in his life Bibbs began to understand the meaning
    of being truly this man's son.

    He would be the more truly his son henceforth, though, as Sheridan said, Bibbs
    had not come down-town with him meanly or half-heartedly.  He had given his
    word because he had wanted the money, simply, for Mary Vertrees in her need.
    And he shivered with horror of himself, thinking how he had gone to her to
    offer it, asking her to marry him--with his head on his breast in shameful
    fear that she would accept him!  He had not known her; the knowing had lost
    her to him, and this had been his real awakening; for he knew now how deep had
    been that slumber wherein he dreamily celebrated the superiority of
    "friendship"!  The sleep-walker had wakened to bitter knowledge of love and
    life, finding himself a failure in both.  He had made a burnt offering of his
    dreams, and the sacrifice had been an unforgivable hurt to Mary.  All that was
    left for him was the work he had not chosen, but at least he would not fail in
    that, though it was indeed no more than "dust in his mouth."  If there had
    been anything "to work for --"

    He went to the window, raised it, and let in the uproar of the streets below.
    He looked down at the blurred, hurrying swarms--and he looked across, over the
    roofs with their panting jets of vapor, into the vast, foggy heart of the
    smoke.  Dizzy traceries of steel were rising dimly against it, chattering with
    steel on steel, and screeching in steam, while tiny figures of men walked on
    threads in the dull sky.  Buildings would overtop the Sheridan.  Bigness was
    being served.

    But what for?  The old question came to Bibbs with a new despair.  Here, where
    his eyes fell, had once been green fields and running brooks, and how had the
    kind earth been despoiled and disfigured!  The pioneers had begun the work,
    but in their old age their orators had said for them that they had toiled and
    risked and sacrificed that their posterity might live in peace and wisdom,
    enjoying the fruits of the earth.  Well, their posterity was here--and there
    was only turmoil.  Where was the promised land?  It had been promised by the
    soldiers of all the wars; it had been promised to this generation by the
    pioneers; but here was the very posterity to whom it had been promised,
    toiling and risking and sacrificing in turn--for what?

    The harsh roar of the city came in through the open window, continuously
    beating upon Bibbs's ear until he began to distinguish a pulsation in it --a
    broken and irregular cadence.  It seemed to him that it was like a titanic
    voice, discordant, hoarse, rustily metallic--the voice of the god, Bigness.
    And the voice summoned Bibbs as it summoned all its servants.

    "Come and work!" it seemed to yell.  "Come and work for Me, all men!  By your
    youth and your hope I summon you!  By your age and your despair I sommon you
    to work for Me yet a little, with what strength you have.  By your love of
    home I summon you!  By your love of woman I summon you!  By your hope of
    children I summon you!

    "You shall be blind slaves of Mine, blind to everything but Me, you Master and
    Driver!  For your reward you shall gaze only upon my ugliness.  You shall give
    your toil and your lives, you shall go mad for love and worship of my
    ugliness!  You shall perish still worshipping Me, and your children shall
    perish knowing no other god!"

    And then, as Bibbs closed the window down tight, he heard his father's voice
    booming in the next room; he could not distinguish the words, but the tone was
    exultant--and there came the THUMP! THUMP! of the maimed hand.  Bibbs guessed
    that Sheridan was bragging of the city and of Bigness to some visitor from
    out-of-town.

    And he thought how truly Sheridan was the high priest of Bigness.  But with
    the old, old thought again,, "What for?" Bibbs caught a glimmer of far, faint
    light.  He saw that Sheridan had all his life struggled and conquered, and
    must all his life go on struggling and inevitably conquering, as part of a
    vast impulse not his own.  Sheridan served blindly--but was the impulse blind?
    Bibbs asked himself if it was not he who had been in the greater hurry, after
    all.  The kiln must be fired before the vase is glazed, and the Acropolis was
    not crowned with marble in a day.

    Then the voice came to him again, but there was a strain in it as of some hugh
    music struggling to be born of the turmoil.  "Ugly I am," it seemed to say to
    him, "but never forget that I AM a god!"  And the voice grew in sonorousness
    and in dignity.  "The highest should serve, but so long as you worship me for
    my own sake I will not serve you.  It is man who makes me ugly, by his worship
    of me.  If man would let me serve him, I should be beautiful!"

    Looking once more from the window, Bibbs sculptured for himself--in the vague
    contortions of the smoke and fog above the roofs--a giganitc figure with feet
    pedestaled upon the great buildings and shoulders disappearing in the clouds,
    a colossus of steel and wholly blackened with soot.  But Bibbs carried his
    fancy further--for there was still a little poet lingering in the back of his
    head--and he thought that up over the clouds, unseen from below, the giant
    labored with his hands in the clean sunshine; and Bibbs had a glimpse of what
    he made there--perhaps for a fellowship of the children of the children that
    were children now--a noble and joyous city, unbelievably white--"

    It was the telephone that called him from his vision.  It rang fiercely.

    He lifted the thing from his desk and answered--and as the small voice inside
    it spoke he dropped the receiver with a crash.  He trembled violently as he
    picked it up, but he told himself he was wrong--he had been mistaken--yet it
    was a startlingly beautiful voice; startlingly kind, too, and ineffably like
    the one he hungered most to hear.

    "Who?" he said, his own voice shaking--like his hand.

    "Mary."

    He responded with two hushed and incredulous words: "IS IT?"

    There was a little thrill of pathetic half-laughter in the instrument.
    "Bibbs--I wanted to--just to see if you--"

    "Yes--Mary?"

    "I was looking when you were so nearly run over.  I saw it, Bibbs.  They said
    you hadn't been hurt, they thought, but I wanted to know for myself."

    "No, no, I wasn't hurt at all--Mary.  It was father who came nearer it. He
    saved me."

    "Yes, I saw; but you had fallen.  I couldn't get through the crowd until you
    had gone.  And I wanted to KNOW."

    "Mary--would you--have minded?" he said.

    There was a long interval before she answered.

    "Yes."

    "Then why--"

    "Yes, Bibbs?"

    "I don't know what to say," he cried.  "It's so wonderful to hear your voice
    again--I'm shaking, Mary--I--I don't know--I don't know anything except that I
    AM talking to you!  It IS you--Mary?"

    "Yes, Bibbs!"

    "Mary--I've seen you from my window at home--only five times since I --since
    then.  You looked--oh, how can I tell you?  It was like a man chained in a
    cave catching a glimpse of the blue sky, Mary.  Mary, won't you--let me see
    you again--near?  I think I could make you really forgive me--you'd have to--"

    "I DID--then."

    "No--not really--or you wouldn't have said you couldn't see me any more."

    "That wasn't the reason."  The voice was very low.

    "Mary," he said, even more tremulously than before, "I can't--you COULDN'T
    mean it was because--you can't mean it was because you-- care?"

    There was no answer.

    "Mary?" he called, huskily.  "If you mean THAT--you'd let me see you--
    wouldn't you?"

    And now the voice was so low he could not be sure it spoke at all, but if it
    did, the words were, "Yes, Bibbs--dear."

    But the voice was not in the instrument--it was so gentle and so light, so
    almost nothing, it seemed to be made of air--and it came from the air.

    Slowly and incredulously he turned--and glory fell upon his shining eyes.  The
    door of his father's room had opened.

    Mary stood upon the threshold.

    THE END

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