one limp petticoat nowadays. And buttoned shoes. The eyelets in that
embroidery are just big enough to catch on the top button of a woman's
shoe, and tear, and trip her. I ought to have let you make up a couple
of million of them, and then watch them come back on your hands. I was
going to tell you, anyway, for T. A. Senior's sake. Now I'm doing it
for your own."

[Illustration: "And found himself addressing the backs of the letters
on the door marked 'Private'"]

"For--" began T. A. Junior excitedly. And found himself addressing the
backs of the letters on the door marked "Private," as it slammed after
the trim, erect figure in blue.




VII

UNDERNEATH THE HIGH-CUT VEST


We all carry with us into the one-night-stand country called
Sleepland, a practical working nightmare that we use again and again,
no matter how varied the theme or setting of our dream-drama. Your
surgeon, tossing uneasily on his bed, sees himself cutting to remove
an appendix, only to discover that that unpopular portion of his
patient's anatomy already bobs in alcoholic glee in a bottle on the
top shelf of the laboratory of a more alert professional brother. Your
civil engineer constructs imaginary bridges which slump and fall as