was another world, indeed, larger and brighter by far, and more richly
varied, than that of his home and the lane below and the dingy courtyard
in the back.

So he began to ask questions, and one of the first things he learned, to
his great astonishment, was that he had not always lived in the same
place--that he had been born, whatever that meant, in another and
unmistakably more desirable part of the city.

"But why did we come here," he asked, trying instinctively to keep his
voice from sounding regretful or petulant.

"Because the bank owns this house," his mother replied. "And because
papa acts as landlord for it, and we don't have to pay any rent here."

Out of this confusing answer he retained a single idea: the bank. It was
in the home air, so to speak. Evidently his father was closely connected
with it, and this was good for the whole family. For a little while the
boy imagined that his father was the bank. Later he began to think of it
as some sort of superlatively powerful being that, alone in the whole
world, ranked above his father even. Still later--much later--he began
to suspect a relationship between the bank and his father resembling
that between his father and himself. And he read out of his father's
words and miens a sense of dissatisfaction not unlike the one he felt
when he was forced to do what he did not want, or prevented from doing
what he wanted.

This was his fourth fundamental realization: of powers beyond those
directly represented within the home; powers of compelling importance
that might, or might not, be kindly; powers before which all and