breakfast of coffee and whisked wheat at the Hustler Lunch the
lines between the blocks of the cement walk, radiant in a white
flare of sunshine, irritatingly recalled the cross-lines of
order-lists, with the narrow cement blocks at the curb standing
for unfilled column-headings. Even the ridges of the Hustler
Lunch's imitation steel ceiling, running in parallel lines,
jeered down at him that he was a prosaic man whose path was a ruler.

He went clear up to the branch post-office after breakfast to
get the Sunday mail, but the mail was a disappointment.
He was awaiting a wonderful fully illustrated guide to the
Land of the Midnight Sun, a suggestion of possible and
coyly improbable trips, whereas he got only a letter from his
oldest acquaintance--Cousin John, of Parthenon, New York, the
boy-who-comes-to-play of Mr. Wrenn's back-yard days in Parthenon.
Without opening the letter Mr. Wrenn tucked it into his inside coat
pocket, threw away his toothpick, and turned to Sunday wayfaring.

He jogged down Twenty-third Street to the North River ferries afoot.
Trolleys took money, and of course one saves up for future great
traveling. Over him the April clouds were fetterless vagabonds
whose gaiety made him shrug with excitement and take a curb with
a frisk as gambolsome as a Central Park lamb. There was no hint
of sales-lists in the clouds, at least. And with them Mr. Wrenn's
soul swept along, while his half-soled Cum-Fee-Best $3.80 shoes
were ambling past warehouses. Only once did he condescend to
being really on Twenty-third Street. At the Ninth Avenue corner,
under the grimy Elevated, he sighted two blocks down to the
General Theological Seminary's brick Gothic and found in a
pointed doorway suggestions of alien beauty.