his way, except a dispairing vision of crêpe letters before his eyes
reading:"--And For What?"

He ends up by going to the movies where he falls asleep. Rather than go
home to the empty house he stays at the club. In the morning he is at
the office at a quarter to seven.

Now there ought to be several things that a man could do at home to
relieve the tedium of his existence while the family is away. Once you
get accustomed to the sound of your footsteps on the floors and reach a
state of self-control where you don't break down and sob every time you
run into a toy which has been left standing around, there are lots of
ways of keeping yourself amused in an empty house.

You can set the victrola going and dance. You may never have had an
opportunity to get off by yourself and practice those new steps without
someone's coming suddenly into the room and making you look foolish.
(That's one big advantage about being absolutely alone in a house. You
can't _look_ foolish, no matter what you do. You may _be_ foolish, but
no one except you and your God knows about it and God probably has a
great deal too much to do to go around telling people how foolish you
were). So roll back the rugs and put on "Kalua" and, holding out one arm
in as fancy a manner as you wish, slip the other daintily about the
waist of an imaginary partner and step out. You'd be surprised to see
how graceful you are. Pretty soon you will get confidence to try a few
tricks. A very nice one is to stop in the middle of a step, point the
left toe delicately twice in time to the music, dip, and whirl. It makes
no difference if you fall on the whirl. Who cares? And when you are
through dancing you can go out to the faucet and get yourself a
drink--provided the water hasn't been turned off.