of serviceable texture. And so he abandoned himself to his fate, even
though he foresaw with weariful particularity the programme of the
coming hours.

To begin with, thirty minutes were to be devoted to a bath and
dressing in his rooms. This was something not so unpleasant to
contemplate. It was the afterwards that repelled him: the dinner
at Sherry's, the subsequent tour of roof gardens, the late supper
at a club, and then, prolonged far into the small hours, the
session around some green-covered table in a close room reeking
with the fumes of good tobacco and hot with the fever of
gambling....

Abstractedly Maitland frowned, tersely summing up: "Beastly!"--in
an undertone.

At this the green car wheeled abruptly round a corner below
Thirty-fourth Street, slid half a block or more east, and came to
a palpitating halt. Maitland, looking up, recognized the entrance
to his apartments, and sighed with relief for the brief respite
from boredom that was to be his. He rose, negligently shaking off
his duster, and stepped down to the sidewalk.

Somebody in the car called a warning after him, and turning for a
moment he stood at attention, an eyebrow raised quizzically,
cigarette drooping from a corner of his mouth, hat pushed back
from his forehead, hands in coat pockets: a tall, slender,
sparely-built figure of a man, clothed immaculately in flannels.

When at length he was able to make himself heard, "Good enough,"