circumscribed path of the sober in mind and body.

The ten-twenty had departed by a bare two minutes. The next and
last train for Greenfields was to leave at ten-fifty-nine.
Maitland with assumed nonchalance composed himself upon a bench in
the waiting-room to endure the thirty-seven minute interval. Five
minutes later an able-bodied washerwoman with six children in
quarter sizes descended upon the same bench; and the young man in
desperation allowed himself to be dispossessed. The news-stand
next attracting him, he garnered a fugitive amusement and two
dozen copper cents by the simple process of purchasing six "night
extras," which he did not want, and paying for each with a
five-cent piece. Comprehending, at length, that he had irritated
the news-dealer, he meandered off, jingling his copper-fortune in
one hand, lugging his newspapers in the other, and made a
determined onslaught upon a slot machine. The latter having
reluctantly disgorged twenty-four assorted samples of chewing-gum
and stale sweetmeats, Maitland returned to the washerwoman, and
sowed dissension in her brood by presenting the treasure-horde to
the eldest girl with instructions to share it with her brothers
and sisters.

It is difficult to imagine what folly might next have been
recorded against him had not, at that moment, a ferocious and
inarticulate howl from the train-starter announced the fact that
the ten-fifty-nine was in waiting.

Boarding the train in a thankful spirit, Maitland settled himself
as comfortably as he might in the smoker and endeavored to find
surcease of ennui in his collection of extras. In vain: even a