at the foot of the building, run the ribboned tracks of the railroad yards.
They disappear to the south in a smoky haze; to the north they end at the
foot of a lofty grain elevator. Beyond, factories quietly belch sooty
clouds.

Dr. Lindsay coveted this office, but Dr. Leonard clung tenaciously to his
little strip, every inch that he could possibly pay rent for. He had been
there since that story was finished. The broad view rested him. When he
ceased to peer into a patient's mouth, he pushed up his spectacles and took
a long look over the lake. Sometimes, if the patient was human and had
enough temperament to appreciate his treasure, he would idle away a quarter
of an hour chatting, enjoying the sun and the clear air of the lake. When
the last patient had gone, he would take the chair and have the view to
himself, as from a proscenium box.

The little office was a busy place: besides the patients there were coming
and going a stream of people,--agents, canvassers, acquaintances, and
promoters of schemes. A scheme was always brewing in the dentist's office.
Now it was a plan to exploit a new suburb innumerable miles to the west.
Again it was a patent contrivance in dentistry. Sometimes the scheme was
nothing more than a risky venture in stocks. These affairs were conducted
with an air of great secrecy in violent whisperings, emphasized by blows of
the fist upon the back of the chair. The favored patients were deftly
informed of "a good thing," the dentist taking advantage of the one
inevitable moment of receptivity for his thrifty promotions. The schemes,
it must be said, had never come to much. If Dr. Leonard had survived
without any marked loss a dozen years of venturing, he might be said to
have succeeded. He had no time for other games; this was his poker. They
were always the schemes of little people, very complex in organization,
needing a wheel here, a cog there, finally breaking down from the lack of