eight, still snivelingly washing, though not cleaning, the
incredible pile of dinner dishes. With a trail of hesitating
remarks on the sadness of sciatica and windy evenings Mr. Wrenn
sneaked forth from the august presence of Mrs. Zapp and mounted
to paradise--his third-floor-front.

It was an abjectly respectable room--the bedspread patched;
no two pieces of furniture from the same family; half-tones
from the magazines pinned on the wall. But on the old marble
mantelpiece lived his friends, books from wanderland.
Other friends the room had rarely known. It was hard enough
for Mr. Wrenn to get acquainted with people, anyway, and Mrs.
Zapp did not expect her gennulman lodgers to entertain. So Mr.
Wrenn had given up asking even Charley Carpenter, the assistant
bookkeeper at the Souvenir Company, to call. That left him the
books, which he now caressed with small eager finger-tips.
He picked out a P. & O. circular, and hastily left for fairyland.


The April skies glowed with benevolence this Saturday morning.
The Metropolitan Tower was singing, bright ivory tipped with
gold, uplifted and intensely glad of the morning. The buildings
walling in Madison Square were jubilant; the honest red-brick
fronts, radiant; the new marble, witty. The sparrows in the
middle of Fifth Avenue were all talking at once, scandalously but
cleverly. The polished brass of limousines threw off teethy smiles.
At least so Mr. Wrenn fancied as he whisked up Fifth Avenue,
the skirts of his small blue double-breasted coat wagging.
He was going blocks out of his way to the office; ready to
defy time and eternity, yes, and even the office manager.