A small effaced-looking man.

WAYTHORN, the next morning, went down town earlier than usual.
Haskett was not likely to come till the afternoon, but the instinct
of flight drove him forth. He meant to stay away all day--he had
thoughts of dining at his club. As his door closed behind him he
reflected that before he opened it again it would have admitted
another man who had as much right to enter it as himself, and the
thought filled him with a physical repugnance.

He caught the "elevated" at the employees' hour, and found himself
crushed between two layers of pendulous humanity. At Eighth Street
the man facing him wriggled out and another took his place. Waythorn
glanced up and saw that it was Gus Varick. The men were so close
together that it was impossible to ignore the smile of recognition
on Varick's handsome overblown face. And after all--why not? They
had always been on good terms, and Varick had been divorced before
Waythorn's attentions to his wife began. The two exchanged a word on
the perennial grievance of the congested trains, and when a seat at
their side was miraculously left empty the instinct of
self-preservation made Waythorn slip into it after Varick.

The latter drew the stout man's breath of relief.

"Lord--I was beginning to feel like a pressed flower." He leaned