and--

"Say, old man, joking aside, we're mighty sorry you're going
and--uh--well, we'd like to give you something to show
we're--uh--mighty sorry you're going. We thought of a box of
cigars, but you don't smoke much; anyway, these han'k'chiefs'll
help to show--Three cheers for Wrenn, fellows!"

Afterward, by his desk, alone, holding the box of handkerchiefs
with the resplendent red-and-green label, Mr. Wrenn began to cry.


He was lying abed at eight-thirty on a morning of late June, two
weeks after leaving the Souvenir Company, deliberately hunting
over his pillow for cool spots, very hot and restless in the
legs and enormously depressed in the soul. He would have got up
had there been anything to get up for. There was nothing, yet
he felt uneasily guilty. For two weeks he had been afraid of
losing, by neglect, the job he had already voluntarily given up.
So there are men whom the fear of death has driven to suicide.

Nearly every morning he had driven himself from bed and had
finished shaving before he was quite satisfied that he didn't
have to get to the office on time. As he wandered about during
the day he remarked with frequency, "I'm scared as teacher's pet
playing hookey for the first time, like what we used to do
in Parthenon." All proper persons were at work of a week-day
afternoon. What, then, was he doing walking along the street
when all morality demanded his sitting at a desk at the Souvenir
Company, being a little more careful, to win the divine favor of