Classic Audiobook Collection - Flappers and Philosophers by F. Scott Fitzgerald ~ Full Audiobook [drama]

Episode Date: December 27, 2022

Flappers and Philosophers by F. Scott Fitzgerald audiobook. Genre: drama Step into the bright, restless world of the early 1920s with Flappers and Philosophers, F. Scott Fitzgerald's sparkling first story collection. Across eight tales of youth, money, and sudden desire, Fitzgerald follows dreamers and social climbers as they chase romance, status, and the newest thrills of the Jazz Age. In the title story, a young man tries to map love with logic only to discover that emotions refuse to obey tidy rules. In other stories, ambitious outsiders test their luck in drawing rooms and on city streets, while young women with a new sense of freedom weigh what they want against what society expects. From glittering parties to quiet moments of self-reckoning, each narrative captures the push and pull between idealism and reality, between the performance of sophistication and the private cost of wanting more. Witty, bittersweet, and sharply observed, these stories reveal how quickly fortunes can shift and how easily a single choice can define a life, offering a vivid portrait of an era intoxicated with possibility - and shadowed by consequence. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (01:11:47) Chapter 02 (02:12:15) Chapter 03 (03:05:53) Chapter 04 (03:55:03) Chapter 05 (04:55:05) Chapter 06 (05:32:34) Chapter 07 (06:12:29) Chapter 08 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Flappers and Philosophers by F. Scott Fitzgerald For Zelda The Offshore Pirate One This unlikely story begins on a sea that was a blue dream As colorful as blue silk stockings And under a sky as blue as the irises of children's eyes From the western half of the sky

the sun was shying little golden discs at the sea if you gazed intently enough you could see them skip from wave tip to wave tip until they joined a broad collar of golden coin that was collecting half a mile out and would eventually be a dazzling sunset about half-way between the florida shore and the golden collar a white steam yacht very young and graceful was riding at anchor and under a blue and white awning aft a yellow-haired a yellow-haired herd girl reclined in a wicker city reading the revolt of the angels by anatole france she was about nineteen slender and supple with a spoiled alluring mouth and quick grey eyes full of a radiant curiosity her feet stalkingless and adorned rather than clad in blue satin slippers which swung nonchalantly from her toes were perched on the arm of a settee adjoining the one she occupied and as she read she intermittently regaled herself by a faint application to her tongue of a half-lemon that she held in her hand the other half sucked dry lay on the deck at her feet and rocked very gently to and fro at the almost imperceptible motion of the tide the second half-lemon was well nigh pulpless and the golden collar had grown astonishing in width when suddenly the drowsy silence which enveloped the yacht was broken by the sound of heavy footsteps and an elderly man topped with orderly gray hair and clad in a white flannel suit appeared at the head of the companionway there he paused for a moment until his eyes became accustomed to the sun and then seeing the girl under the awning he uttered a long even grunt of dissoning he uttered a long even grunt of disson approval. If he had intended thereby to obtain a rise of any sort, he was doomed to disappointment.

The girl calmly turned over two pages, turned back one, raised the lemon mechanically to tasting distance, and then very faintly but quite unmistakably yawned. Ardita, said the grey-haired man sternly. Ardita uttered a small sound, indicating nothing. Ardita, he repeated. Ardita! Ardita raised the lemon languidly, allowing three words to slip out before it reached her tongue. Oh, shut up. Ardita! What?

Will you listen to me? Or will I have to get a servant to hold you while I talk to you? The lemon descended very slowly and scornfully. Put it in writing. Will you have the decency to close that abominable bruntary? and discard that damn lemon for two minutes. Oh, can't you let me alone for a second? Artina, I have just received a telephone message from the shore.

Telephone? She showed for the first time a faint interest. Yes, it was... Do you mean to say, she interrupted wonderingly. Had they let you run a wire out here? Yes, and just now... won't other boats bump into it no it's run along the bottom five minutes well i'll be darned gosh science is golden or something isn't it will you let me say what i started to shoot well it seems well i am up here he paused and swallowed several times distractedly oh yes young woman colonel morland

has called me up again to ask me to be sure to bring you into dinner. His son Toby has come all the way from New York to meet you, and he's invited several other young people. For the last time, will you? No, said Ardita shortly. I won't. I came along on this darn fruze with the one idea of going to Palm Beach, and you knew it. And I absolutely refused to meet any darn old colonel, or any darn young Toby, or any darn old young people, or to set foot in any other darn old, darned young people, or to set foot in any other darned. old town in this crazy state. So you either take me to Palm Beach, or else shut up and go away.

Very well, this is the last straw in your infatuation for this man, a man who is notorious for his excesses, a man your father would not have allowed to someone just mention your name. You have reflected the demi-monde rather than the circles in which you have presumably grown up. From now on, I know, interrupted Ardita ironically. From now on, you go your way and I go mine. I've heard that story before. You know I'd like nothing better. From now on, he announced grandiloquently, you are no niece of mine. I, oh, the cry was rung from Ardita with the agony of a lost soul. Will you stop boring me? Will you go away? Will you jump overboard and drown? Do you want me to throw this book at you? If you dare do any smack, the revolt of the angels sailed through the air, missed its target by the length of a short nose, and bumped cheerfully down the companion way.

The grey-haired man made an instinctive step backward, and then two cautious steps forward. Ardita jumped to her five feet four and stared at him defiantly her grey eyes blazing. Keep off! How dare you? cried because i darn please you've grown unbearable your disposition you've made me that way no child ever has a bad disposition unless it's her family's fault whatever i am you did it muttering something under his breath her uncle turned and walking forward called in a loud voice for the launch then he returned to the awning where ardita had again seen herself and resumed her attention to the lemon. I am going ashore, he said slowly.

I will be out again at nine o'clock tonight. When I return, we start back to New York, whither I shall turn you over to your aunt for the rest of your natural, or rather unnatural life. He paused and looked at her, and then, all at once, something in the utter childishness of her beauty seemed to puncture his anger like an inflated tire, and render him helpless, uncertain, utterly fatuous.

Ardita, he said not unkindly, I'm no fool, I've been round, I know men, and child confirmed libertines don't reform until they're tired, and then they're not themselves, they're husks of themselves. He looked at her as if expecting agreement, but receiving no such, or sound of it, he continued. Perhaps the man loves you. That's possible. He's loved many women and he'll love many more. Less than a month ago.

One month, Ardita, he was involved in an notorious affair with that red-haired woman, Mimi Merrill, promised to give her the diamond bracelet that the Tsar of Russia gave his mother. You know you read the papers. Thrilling scandals by an anxious, Uncle, yawned Ardita. Have it filmed?

Wicked clubmen making eyes at Virtuous Flapper. Virtuous Flapper conclusively vamped by his lurid past. Plans to meet him at Palm Beach, foiled by anxious uncle. Will you tell me why the devil you want to marry him? I'm sure I couldn't say, said Ardita shortly. Maybe it's because he's the only man, good or bad, with an imagination and the courage of his convictions. Maybe it's to get away from the young fools

that spend their vacuous hours pursuing me around the country. But as for the famous Russian bracelet, you can set your mind at rest on that score. He's going to give it to me at Palm Beach, if you'll show a little intelligence. How about the red-haired woman? He hasn't seen her for six months, she said angrily. Don't you suppose I have enough pride to see to that?

Don't you know by this time that I can do any darn thing with any darn man I want to?' She put her chin in the air like the statue of France aroused, and then spoiled the pose somewhat by raising the lemon for action. Is it the Russian bracelet that fascinates you? No, I'm merely trying to give you the sort of argument that would appeal to your intelligence. And I wish you'd go away, she said, her temper rising again. You know I never changed my mind. You've been boring me for three days until I'm about to go crazy. I won't go ashore.

Won't. Do you hear, won't? Very well, he said, and you won't go to Palm Beach either. Of all the selfish, spoiled, uncontrolled, disagreeable, impossible girls, I have... Splush, the half-lemon caught him in the neck. Simultaneously came a hail from over the side. the lodge is ready mr farnham too full of words and rage to speak mr farnham cast one utterly condemning glance at his niece and turning ran swiftly down the ladder two five o'clock rolled down from the sun and plumped soundlessly into the sea the golden collar widened into a glittering island and a faint breeze that had been playing with the edges of the awning

and swaying one of the dangling blue slippers became suddenly freighted with song. It was a chorus of men, in close harmony and in perfect rhythm to an accompanying sound of oars cleaving the blue waters. Ardita lifted her head and listened. Carrots and peas, beans on their knees, pigs in the seas lucky fellows, blow us a breeze, blow us a breeze, blow us a breeze, blow us a breeze with your bellows. Ardita's brow wrinkled in astonishment. Sitting very still she listened eagerly as the chorus took up a second verse. Onions and beans, marshals and deans, Goldbergs and greens and Costellos,

Blow us a breeze, blow us a breeze, blow us a breeze with your bellows. With an exclamation she tossed her book to the deck where it sprawled at a straddle and hurried to the rail. fifty feet away a large rowboat was approaching containing seven men six of them rowing and one standing up in the stern keeping time to their song with an orchestra leader's baton oysters and rocks sawdust and socks who could make clocks out of cellos the leader's eyes suddenly rested on ardita who was leaning over the rail spellbound with curiosity he made a quick movement with his baton and the singing instantly ceased she saw that he was the only white man in the boat the six rowers were negroes narcissus ahoy he called politely what's the idea of all the discord demanded ardita cheerfully is this the varsity crew from the county nut farm by this time the boat was scraping the side of the yacht and a great hulking negro in the bow turned round and grasped the ladder thereupon the leader left his position in the stern and before ardita had reached his position in the stern and before ardita had reached his head had realized his intention he ran up the ladder and stood breathless before her on the deck the woman and children will be spared he said briskly all crying babies will be immediately drowned at all males put in double irons digging her hands excitedly down into the pockets of her dress ardita stared at him speechless with astonishment he was a young man with a scornful mouth and the bright blue eyes of a healthy baby set in a dark sensitive face

his hair was pitch black damp and curly the hair of a grecian statue gone brunette he was trimly built trimly dressed and graceful as an agile quarterback well i'll be a son of a gun she said dazedly they eyed each other coolly do you surrender the ship is this an outburst of wit demanded ardita are you an idiot or just being initiated to some fraternity i asked you if you surrendered the ship i thought the county was dry said arida disdainfully have you been drinking finger-nail enamel you'd better get off this yacht what the young man's voice expressed incredulity get off the yacht you heard me he looked at her for a moment as if considering what she had said no said his scornful mouth slowly no i won't get off the yacht you can get off if you wish going to the rail he gave a curt command and immediately the crew of the row-boat scrambled up the ladder and ranged themselves in line before him a coal-black and burly darky at one end and a miniature mulatto of four feet nine at the other they seemed to be uniformly dressed in some sort of blue costume ornamented with dust mud and tatters over the shoulder of each was slung a small heavy-looking white sack and under their arms they carried large black cases apparently containing musical instruments tension commanded the young man snapping his own heels together crisply right dress front step out here babe the smallest negro took a quick step forward and saluted yesa take command go down below catch the crew and tie him up all except the engineer bring him up to me oh and

pile those bags by the rail there. Yes, sir, Babe saluted again, and, wheeling about, motioned for the five others to gather about him. Then, after a short-whispered consultation, they all filed noiselessly down the companionway. Now, said the young man cheerfully to Ardita, who had witnessed this last scene in withering silence, if you will swear on your honour as a flapper, which probably isn't worth much, that you'll keep that spoil little mouth of yours tight shut for forty-eight hours, you can row yourself ashore in our rowboat. Otherwise what? Otherwise you're going to see in a ship. With a little sigh as for a crisis while passed, the young man sank into the settee

Ardita had lately vacated and stretched his arms lazily. The corners of his mouth relaxed appreciatively as he looked round at the rich, striped awning, the polished brass, and the luxurious fittings of the deck. His eye fell on the book, and then on the exhausted lemon. Hmm, he said. Stonewall Jackson claimed that lemon juice cleared his head. Your head feel pretty clear? Ardita disdained to answer, because inside of five minutes you'll have to make a clear decision whether it's go or stay. He picked up the book and opened it curiously. "'The Revolt of the Angels. "'It sounds pretty good.

"'French, eh?' "'He stared at her with new interest. "'You French?' "'No. "'What's your name?' "'Farnham.' "'Farnham what?' "'Ardita, Farnham.'

"'Well, Ardita, no, you standing up there "'and chewing out the insides of your mouth. "'You ought to break those nervous habits while you're young. "'Come over here and sit down.' Ardita took a carved jade case from her pocket, extracted a cigarette, and lit it with a conscious coolness, though she knew her hand was trembling a little.

Then she crossed over with her supple, swinging walk, and sitting down in the other city blew a mouthful of smoke at the awning. You can't get me off this yacht, she said steadily, and you haven't got very much sense if you think you'll get far with it. My uncle will have wirelesses zigzagging all over this ocean, by half past six. Hmm.

She looked quickly at his face, caught anxiety stamped there plainly in the faintest depression of the mouth's corners. It's all the same to me, she said, shrugging her shoulders. Tisn't my yacht. I don't mind going for a couple hours, cruise. I'll even lend you that book

so you have something to read on the revenue boat that takes you up to Sing Sing. He laughed scornfully. If that's advice, you needn't bother. This is part of a plan, "'before I ever knew this yacht existed. "'If it hadn't been this one, "'it had been the next one we passed anchored along the coast.'

"'Who are you?' demanded Ardita suddenly. "'And what are you?' "'You've decided not to go ashore. "'I never even faintly considered it.' "'We're generally known,' he said, all seven of us, "'as Curtis Carlyle and his six black buddies "'late of the Winter Garden and the Midnight Frolic.' "'Your singers?'

"'We were until today. "'At present, due to those white bags you see there, "'were fugitives from justice, "'and if the reward offered for our capture "'h hasn't by this time reached $20,000, I miss my guess.' "'What's in the bags?' asked Ardida curiously. "'Well,' he said, "'for the present we'll call it mud,

"'Florida mud.' "'Three.' within ten minutes after curtis carlyle's interview with a very frightened engineer the yacht narcissus was under way steaming south through a balmy tropical twilight the little mulatto babe who seemed to have carlyle's implicit confidence took full command of the situation mr farnum's valet and the chef the only members of the crew on board except the engineer having shown fight were now reconsidering strapped securely to their bunks below low. Trombone Moes, the biggest negro, was set busy with a can of paint obliterating the name Narcissus from the bow, and substituting the name Hula-Hula, and the others congregated aft and became intently involved in a game of crabs. Having given orders for a meal to be prepared and served on deck at 7.30, Carlisle rejoined Ardita, and, sinking back into his settee, half-closed his

eyes and fell into a state of profound abstraction. Ardita scrutinized him carefully and classed him immediately as a romantic figure. He gave the effect of towering self-confidence erected on a slight foundation. Just under the surface of each of his decisions, she discerned a hesitancy that was in decided contrast to the arrogant curl of his lips. "'He's not like me,' she thought. "'There's a difference somewhere.' Being a supreme egotist, Ardita frequently thought about herself.

Never having had her egotism disputed, she did it entirely naturally and with no detraction from her unquestioned charm. Though she was nineteen, she gave the effect of a high-spirited, precocious child, and in the present glow of her youth and beauty, all the men and women she had known were but driftwood on the ripples of her temperament. She had met other egotists. In fact, she found that selfish people, board her rather less than unselfish people. But as yet there had not been one she had not

eventually defeated and brought to her feet. But though she recognized an egotist in the city next to her, she felt none of that usual shutting of doors in her mind which meant clearing ship for action. On the contrary, her instinct told her that this man was somehow completely pregnantable and quite defenseless. While Ardita defied convention, and of late it had been her chief amusement, it was from an intense desire to be herself, and she felt that this man, on the contrary, was preoccupied with his own defiance. She was much more interested in him than she was in her own situation, which affected her as the prospect of a matinee might affect a ten-year-old child. She had implicit confidence in her ability to take care of herself under any and all circumstances. The night deepened. a pale new moon smiled misty-eyed upon the sea and as the shore faded dimly out and dark clouds were blown like leaves along the far horizon a great haze of moonshine suddenly bathed the yacht and spread an avenue of glittering mail in her swift path from time to time there was the bright flare of a match as one of them lighted a cigarette but except for the low undertone of the throbbing engines and the even wash of the waves about the sea stern, the yacht was quiet as a dream boat star-bound through the heavens.

Round them followed the smell of the night sea, bringing with it an infinite languor. Carlisle broke the silence at last. Lucky girl, he sighed, I've always wanted to be rich, and buy all this beauty. Ardita yawned. I'd rather be you, she said frankly. You would, for about a day. but you do seem to possess a lot of nerve for a flapper i wish you wouldn't call me that beg your pardon as to nerve she continued slowly it's my one redeeming feature i'm not afraid of anything in heaven or earth hmm i am to be afraid said ardita a person has either to be very great and strong or else a coward i'm neither she paused for a moment and eagerness crept into her tone

but i want to talk about you what on earth have you done and how did you do it why he demanded cynically going to write a movie about me go on she urged Lie to me by the moonlight! Do a fabulous story! A negro appeared, switched on a string of small lights under the awning, and began setting the wicker table for supper. And while they ate cold, sliced chicken, salad, artichokes, and strawberry jam from the plentiful larder below, Carlisle began to talk, hesitatingly at first, but eagerly as he saw she was interested. Ardita scarcely touched her food as she watched his dark,

young face, handsome, ironic, faintly ineffectual. He began life as a poor kid in a Tennessee town, he said, so poor that his people were the only white family in their street. He never remembered any white children. But there were inevitably a dozen Picaninny's streaming in his trail, passionate admirers whom he kept in tow by the vividness of his imagination, and the amount of trouble he was always getting them in and out of. and it seemed that this association diverted a rather unusual musical gift into a strange channel.

There had been a colored woman named Belle Pope Calhoun, who played the piano at parties given for white children. Nice white children that would have passed Curtis Carlyle with a sniff. But the ragged little Po White used to sit beside her piano by the hour and try to get in an alto with one of those casus that boys hummed through. Before he was thirteen, he was picking up a living teasing ragtime out of a battered violin in little cafes round Nashville. Eight years later, the ragtime craze hit the country and he took six darkies on the Orpheum circuit. Five of them were boys he had grown up with. The other was a little mulatto, Babe Devine, who was a wharf nigger round New York, and long before that a plantation hand in Bermuda, until he stuck an eight-inch stiletto in his master's back.

Almost before Carlyle realized his good fortune, he was on Broadway, with offers of engagements on all sides and more money than he had ever dreamed of. It was about then that a change began in his whole attitude, a rather curious, embittering change. It was when he realized that he was spending the golden years of his life jibbering round a stage with a lot of black men. His act was good of its own kind, three trombones, three saxophones, and Carlisle's flute, and it was his own peculiar sense of rhythm that made all the difference. But he began to grow strangely sensitive about it, began to hate the thought of appearing, dreaded it from day to day. They were making money.

Each contract he signed called for more. But when he went to managers and told them he wanted to separate from his sextet and go on as a regular pianist, They laughed at him and told him he was crazy. It would be an artistic suicide. He used to laugh afterward at the phrase artistic suicide. They all used it. Half a dozen times they played at private dances at $3,000 a night, and it seemed as if these crystallized all his distaste for his mode of livelihood. They took place in clubs and houses that he couldn't have gone into in the daytime. After all, he was merely playing the role of the

eternal monkey, a sort of sublimated chorus man. He was sick at the very smell of the theater, of powder and rouge and the chatter of the green room and the patronizing approval of the boxes. He couldn't put his heart into it anymore. The idea of a slow approach to the luxury of leisure drove him wild. He was, of course, progressing toward it, but like a child, eating his ice cream so slowly that he couldn't taste it at all. He wanted to do that he wanted to be a little. He wanted to He wanted to have a lot of money and time and opportunity to read and play, and the sort of men and women around him that he could never have, the kind who, if they thought of him at all, would have considered him rather contemptible. In short, he wanted all those things which he was beginning to lump under the general head of aristocracy, an aristocracy which it seemed almost any money could buy, except money made as he was making it. he was twenty-five then without family or education or any promise that he would succeed in a business career he began speculating wildly and within three weeks he had lost every cent he had saved

then the war came he went to plattsburg and even there his profession followed him a brigadier-general called him up to headquarters and told him he could serve the country better as a bandleader so he spent the war entertaining celebrities behind the line with a head-quartered board. It was not so bad, except that when the infantry came limping back from the trenches, he wanted to be one of them. The sweat and mud they wore seemed only one of those ineffable symbols of aristocracy that were forever eluding him. It was the private dancers that did it. After I came back from the war, the old routines started. We had an offer from a syndicate of Florida hotels. It was only a question of time, then. He broke off, and Artita looked at him expectantly, but he shook his head. No, he said, I'm not going to tell you about it.

I'm enjoying it too much, and I'm afraid I'd lose a little of that enjoyment if I shared it with anyone else. I want to hang on to those few breathless, heroic moments when I stood out before them all and let them know I was more than a damn, bobbing, squawking clown. From up forward came suddenly the low sound of singing. The negroes had gathered together on the deck, and their voices rose together in a haunting melody that soared in poignant harmonics toward the moon, and Ardita listened in enchantment. Oh, down, oh down, mammy want to take me down a milky way, oh down, oh down.

Pappy say to-morrow, but mammy say today, yes, mammy say today. Carlyle sighed and was silent for a moment, looking up at the gathered host of stars blinking like arc lights in the warm sky. The Negro's song had died away to a plaintive humming, and it seemed as if minute by minute the brightness and the great silence were increasing, until he could almost hear the midnight toilet of the mermaids as they combed their silver dripping curls under the moon, and gossiped to each other of the fine wrecks they lived in, on the green opalescent avenues below.

You see, said Carlisle softly, this is the beauty I want. Beauty has got to be astonishing, astounding. It's got to burst in on you like a dream, like the exquisite eyes of a girl. He turned to her, but she was silent. You see, don't you, Anita? I mean, Ardida?

Again, she made no answer. she had been sound asleep for some time four in the dense sun-flooded noon of next day a spot in the sea before them resolved casually into a green and gray islet apparently composed of a great granite cliff at its northern end which slanted south through a mile of vivid coppice and grass to a sandy beach melting lazily into the surf when are dita reading in her favorite sea came to the last page of the revolt of the angels, and slamming the book shut, looked up and saw it, she gave a little cry of delight and called to Carlisle, who was standing moodily by the rail. Is this it? Is this where you're going? Carlisle shrugged his shoulders carelessly. You've got me.

He raised his voice and called up to the acting skipper. Oh, babe! Is this your island? The mulatto's miniature head appeared from around the corner of the deckhouse. Yes, sir, this here's it. Carlisle joined Ardita. Looks sort of sporting, doesn't it? Yes, she agreed, but it doesn't look big enough to be much of a hiding place.

You still putting your faith in those wirelesses your uncle was going to have zigzagging round? No, said Ardita frankly, I'm all for you. I'd really like to see you make a getaway. he laughed you're our lady luck guess we'll have to keep you with us as a mascot for the present anyway you couldn't very well ask me to swim back she said coolly if you do i'm going to start writing dime novels founded on that interminable history of your life he gave me last night He flushed and stiffened slightly. I'm very sorry I bored you. Oh, you didn't, until just at the end was some story about how furious you were because you couldn't dance with the ladies you played music for. He rose angrily. You've got a darn mean little tongue.

Excuse me, she said, melting into laughter. But I'm not used to having men regale me with the story of their life ambitions, especially if they've lived such deftly platonical. lives. Why? What do men usually regale you with? Oh, they talk about me, she yawned. They tell me I'm the spirit of youth and beauty. What do you tell them? Oh, I agree, quietly. Does every man you meet tell you he loves you? Ardita nodded. Why shouldn't he? All life is just a progression toward and then a recession from one phrase. I love you.

Carlisle laughed and sat down. That's very true. That's not bad. Did you make that up? Yes. Or rather, I found it out. It doesn't mean anything especially. It's just clever.

It's the sort of remark, he said gravely. That's typical of your class. Oh, she interrupted impatiently. Don't start that lecture on aristocracy again. I distrust people who can be intense. at this hour in the morning. It's a mild form of insanity, a sort of breakfast-food jag. Morning's the time to sleep, swim, and be careless. Ten minutes later they had swung round in a wide circle as if to approach the island from the north. There's a trick somewhere, commented Ardita

thoughtfully. He can't mean just to anchor up against this cliff. They were heading straight in now toward the solid rock, which must have been well over a hundred feet tall, and not Not until they were within fifty yards of it did Ardita see their objective. Then she clapped her hands in delight. There was a break in the cliff entirely hidden by a curious overlapping of rock, and through this break the yacht entered and very slowly traversed a narrow channel of crystal clear water between high gray walls. Then they were riding at anchor in a miniature world of green and gold, a gilded bay smooth as glass, and set round to round.

with tiny palms, the hole resembling the mirror lakes and twig trees that children set up in sand piles. Not so darn bad, cried Carlisle excitedly. I guess that little coon knows his way around this corner of the Atlantic. His exuberance was contagious, and Ardita became quite jubilant. It's an absolutely sure-fire hiding place. Lordy, yes, it's the sort of island you read about. The rowboat was lowered into the gulf. golden lake and they pulled ashore come on said carlyle as they landed in the slushy sand we'll go exploring the fringe of palms was in turn ringed in by a round mile of flat sandy country they followed it south and brushing through a farther rim of tropical vegetation came out on a pearl-gray virgin beach where ardita kicked off her brown golf shoes she seemed to have permanently abandoned stocking and went waiting. Then they sauntered back to the yacht,

where the indefatigable babe had luncheon ready for them. He had posted a lookout on the high cliff to the north to watch the sea on both sides, though he doubted if the entrance to the cliff was generally known. He had never even seen a map on which the island was marked. What's its name? asked Ardita. The island, I mean. No name tall, chuckled Babe.

Reckon she just... Island. that's all in the late afternoon they sat with their backs against great boulders on the highest part of the cliff and carlyle sketched for her his vague plans he was sure they were hot after him by this time the total proceeds of the coup he had pulled off and concerning which he still refused to enlighten her he estimated it just under a million dollars he counted on lying up here several weeks and then setting off southward keeping well outside the usual channels of travel, rounding the horn, and heading for Kayau in Peru. The details of coaling and provisioning, he was leaving entirely to Babe, who, it seemed, had sailed these seas in every capacity from Cabin-Boy aboard a coffee trader to virtual first mate on a Brazilian pirate craft whose skipper had long since been hung.

If he'd been white, he'd have been King of South America long ago, said Carlisle emphatically. When it comes to intelligence, he makes Bookerty Washington look. look like a moron. He's got the guile of every race and nationality whose blood is in his veins, and that's half a dozen, or I am a liar. He worships me because I'm the only man in the world who can play better ragtime than he can. We used to sit together on the wharves down on the New York waterfront, he with a bassoon and me with an oboe, and we'd blend minor keys in African harmonics a thousand years old until the rats would crawl up the posts and sit round groaning and squeaking like dogs will in front of a phonograph.

Ardita roared. How you can tell him! Carlisle grinned. I swear, that's the goss. What are you going to do when you get to Kayau? She interrupted. TIG ship for India. I want to be a Raja.

I mean it. My idea is to go up into Afghanistan somewhere. Buy up a palace and a reputation. And then, after about five years, appear in England with a foreign accent and a mysterious past. But India first. Do you know, they say that all the gold in the world drifts very gradually back to India? Something fascinating about that to me, and I want leisure to read, an immense amount. How about after that? Then, he answered defiantly, comes aristocracy. Laugh if you want to, but at least you'll have to admit that I know what I want, which I imagine is

more than you do. On the contrary, contradicted Ardita, reaching in her pocket for her cigarette case, when I met you I was in the midst of a great uproar of all my friends and relatives because I did know what I wanted. What was it? A man. He started. You mean you were engaged?

After a fashion, if you hadn't come aboard, I had every intention of slipping ashore yesterday evening. How long ago it seemed. and meeting him in palm beach he's waiting there for me with a bracelet that once belonged to katherine of russia now don't mutter anything about aristocracy she put in quickly i liked him simply because he had an imagination and the utter courage of his convictions but your family disapproved eh what there is of it only a silly uncle and a sillier aunt it seems he got into some scandal with a red-haired woman named mimi something he was all frightfully exaggerated, he said, and men don't lie to me. And anyway, I don't care what he'd done. It was the future that counted, and I'd see to that. When a man's in love with me, he doesn't care for other amusements. I told him to drop her like a hot cake, and he did. I feel rather jealous, said Carlisle, frowning, and then he laughed. I guess I'll just keep you along with us until we get

to Kayau. Then I'll lend you enough money to get back to the States. By that time, you'll had a chance to think that gentleman over a little more. "'Don't talk to me like that,' fired up Ardita. "'I won't tolerate the parental attitude from anybody. "'Do you understand me?' He chuckled and then stopped, rather abashed, as her cold anger seemed to fold him about and chill him. "'I'm sorry,' he offered uncertainly.

"'Oh, don't apologize. I can't stand men who say, I'm sorry in that manly reserved tone. Just shut up. A pause ensued, a pause ensued, a pause which Carlisle found rather awkward, but which Ardita seemed not to notice at all as she sat contentedly enjoying her cigarette and gazing out at the shining sea. After a minute she crawled out on the rock and lay with her face over the edge looking down. Carlisle, watching her, reflected how it seemed impossible for her to assume an ungraceful attitude. Oh, look, she cried, there's a lot of sort of ledges down there, wide ones of all different heights.

He joined her, and together they gazed down the dizzy height. We'll go swimming tonight, she said excitedly. By moonlight. Wouldn't you rather go in at the beach on the other end? Not a chance. I like to dive. You can use my uncle's bathing suit, only it'll fit you like a gunny sack because he's a very flappy man. I've got a one-piece affair that shocked the natives all along the Atlantic coast from Biddeford Pool to St. Augustine. I suppose you're a shark. Yes, I'm pretty good, and I look cute too. A sculptor up at Rye last summer told me my calves were worth $500. There didn't seem to be any answer to this, so Carlisle was silent, permitting himself only a

discreet interior smile. Five. When the night crept down in shadowy blue and silver, they threaded the shimmering channel in the rowboat, and, tying it to a jutting rock, began climbing the cliff together. The first shelf was ten feet up, wide, and furnishing a natural diving platform. There they sat down in the bright moonlight and watched the faint incessant surge of the waters. Almost stilled now, as the tide set seaward. Are you happy? he asked suddenly.

She nodded. Always happy near the sea. You know, she went on, I have been thinking all day that you and I are somewhat alike. We're both rebels, only for different reasons. Two years ago, when I was just 18 and you, you were, were. Twenty-five? Well, we were both conventional successes. I was an utterly devastating debutante, and you were a prosperous musician just commissioned in the army. Gentlemen by act of Congress, he put in ironically.

Well, at any rate, we both fitted. If our corners were not rubbed off, they were at least pulled in. But deep in us both was something that made us require more. for happiness. I didn't know what I wanted. I went from man to man, restless, impatient, month by month, getting less acquiescent and more dissatisfied. I used to sit sometimes chewing at the insides of my mouth and thinking I was going crazy. I had a frightful sense of transiency. I wanted things now, now, now. Here I was, beautiful. I am, aren't I? Yes, agreed Carlisle, tentatively. Ardita rose suddenly. Wait a second. I want to try this delightful-looking sea.

She walked to the edge of the ledge and shot out over the sea, doubling up in mid-air and then straightening out and entering the water straight as a blade in a perfect jack-knife dive. In a minute, her voice floated up to him. You see, I used to read all day and most of the night. I began to resent society. "'Come on up here,' he interrupted. "'What on earth are you doing?' "'Just floating round on my back? "'I'll be up in a minute.

"'Let me tell you, the only thing I enjoyed was shocking people, "'wearing something quite impossible and quite charming to a fancy-dress party, "'going round with the fastest men in New York, "'and getting into some of the most hellish scrapes imaginable. "'The sounds of the splashing mingled with her words, "'and then he heard her hurried breathing, as she began climbing up the side to the ledge. Go on in, she called.

Obediently he rose and dived. When he emerged, dripping and made the climb, he found that she was no longer on the ledge, but after a frightened second, he heard her light laughter from another shelf, ten feet up. There he joined her, and they both sat quietly for a moment, their arms clasped around their knees, panting a little from the clasp.

The family were wild, she said suddenly. They tried to marry me off. And then when I'd begun to feel that after all life was scarcely worth living, I found something. Her eyes went skyward exultedly. I found something. Carlisle waited, and her words came with a rush. Courage. Just that, courage as a rule of life and something to cling to always. I began to. I began to build up this enormous faith in myself. I began to see that in all my idols in the past, some manifestation of courage had unconsciously been the thing that attracted me. I began separating courage from the other things of life.

All sorts of courage, the beaten, bloody prize-fighter coming up for more. I used to make men take me to prize-fights, the Desclass A woman sailing through a nest of cats looking at them as if they were mud under her feet. The liking what you like always, the utter disregard for other people's opinions. Just to live as I liked, always, and to die in my own way. Did you bring up the cigarettes? He handed one over and held a match for her silently. Still, Ardita continued, the men kept gathering.

Old and young men, my mental and physical inferior is most of them, but all intensely desiring to have me, to own this rather magnificent proud tradition I'd built up round me. Do you see? Sort of. You never were beaten and you never apologized. Never.

She sprang to the edge, poised for a moment like a crucified figure against the sky. Then, describing a dark parabola, plunked without a splash between two silver ripples twenty feet below. Her voice floated up to him again, and courage to me meant plowing through that dull gray mist that comes down on life, not only overriding people and circumstances, but overriding the bleakness of living, a sort of insistence on the value of life and the worth of transient things. She was climbing up now, and at her last words her head, with the damp yellow hair slicked symmetrically

back appeared on his level. All very well, objected Carlisle. You can call it courage, but your courage is really built, after all, on a pride of birth. You were bred to that defiant attitude. On my grey days, even courage is one of the things that's grey and lifeless. She was sitting near the edge, hugging her knees and gazing abstractly at the white moon. He was farther back, crammed like a grotesque god into a niche in the rock. I don't want to sound like Pollyanna, she began, but you haven't grasped me yet.

My courage is faith, faith in the eternal resilience of me, that joy will come back and hope and spontaneity, and I feel that till it does I've got to keep my lips shut and my chin high and my eyes wide, not necessarily any silly smiling. Oh, I've been through hell without a wine quite often, and the female hell is dead, than the male. But supposing, suggested Carlyle, that before joy and hope and all that come back, the curtain was drawn on you for good.

Ardita rose and going to the wall climbed with some difficulty to the next ledge, another ten or fifteen feet above. Why, she called back, That I'd have won. He edged out till he could see her. Better love dive from there, you'll break your back, he said quickly. she laughed not i slowly she spread her arms and stood there swan-like radiating a pride in her young perfection that lit a warm glow in carlyle's heart

we're going through the black air with our arms wide she called and our feet straight out behind us like a dolphin's tail and we're going to think that we'll never hit the silver down there till suddenly it'll be all warm round us and full of little kissing caressing waves. Then she was in the air, and Carlisle involuntarily held his breath. He had not realized that the dive was nearly forty feet. It seemed an eternity before he heard this swift, compact sound as she reached the sea. And it was with his glad sigh of relief when her light, watery laughter curled up the side of the cliff and into his anxious ears, that he knew he loved her. Six. Time, having no axe to grind, showered down upon them three days of afternoons. When the sun cleared the porthole of Ardita's cabin an hour after dawn, she rose cheerily, dawned her bathing suit and went up on deck. The negroes would leave their work when they saw her,

and crowd, chuckling and chattering, to the rail as she floated, an agile minnow on and under the surface of the clear water. again in the cool of the afternoon she would swim and lull and smoke with carlyle upon the cliff or else they would lie on their sides in the sands of the southern beach talking little but watching the day fade colourfully and tragically into the infinite languor of a tropical evening And with the long, sunny hours, Ardita's idea of the episode as incidental, madcap, a sprig of romance in a desert of reality, gradually left her. She dreaded the time when he would strike off southward. She dreaded all the eventualities that presented themselves to her. Thoughts were suddenly troublesome, and decisions, odious. Had prayers found place in the pagan rituals of her soul, she would have asked of life only to be unmolested for a while, lazily acquiescent to the ready, naive flow of Carlisle's ideas,

his vivid, boyish imagination, and the vein of monomania that seemed to run crosswise through his temperament and coloured his every action. But this is not a story of two on an island, nor concerned primarily with love bred of isolation. It is merely the presentation of two personalities. and its idyllic setting among the palms of the gulf stream is quite incidental most of us are content to exist and breed and fight for the right to do both and the dominant idea the foredoomed attempt to control one's destiny is reserved for the fortunate or unfortunate few to me the interesting thing about ardita is the courage that will tarnish with her beauty and youth take me with few

you, she said late one night as they sat lazily in the grass under the shadowy, spreading palms. The Negroes had brought ashore their musical instruments, and the sound of weird ragtime was drifting softly over on the warm breath of the night. I'd love to reappear in ten years as a fabulously wealthy, high-cast Indian lady, she continued. Carlyle looked at her quickly. You can, you know. She laughed. Is it a proposal of marriage?

Extra! Ardina Farlem becomes Pirates' Bride, Society Girl kidnapped by ragtime bank robber. It wasn't a bank. What was it? Why won't you tell me? I don't want to break down your illusions. My dear man, I have no illusions about you.

I mean your illusions about yourself. She looked up and surprised. "'About myself? What on earth have I got to do with whatever stray felonies you've committed?' "'That remains to be seen.' She reached over and patted his hand. "'Dear Mr. Curtis Carlisle,' she said softly, "'are you in love with me?' "'As if it mattered.' "'But it does, because I think I'm in love with you.'

He looked at her ironically. Thus swelling your January total to half a dozen, he suggested, suppose I call your bluff and ask you to come to India with me. Shall I? He shrugged his shoulders. We can get married in Cairo. What sort of life can you offer me? I don't mean that unkindly, but seriously,

what would become of me if the people who want that twenty thousand dollar reward ever catch up with you? i thought you weren't afraid i never am but i won't throw my life away just to show one man i'm not i wish you'd been poor just a little poor girl dreaming over a fence in a warm cow country wouldn't it have been nice i'd have enjoyed astonishing you watching your eyes open on things if you only wanted things don't you see I know, like girls who stare into the windows of jewelry stores. Yes, and want the big oblong watch that's platinum and has diamonds all around the edge. Only you'd decide it was too expensive and choose one of the white gold for a hundred dollars. Then I'd say, expensive, I should say not! And we'd go into the store and pretty soon the platinum one would be gleaming on your wrist.

That sounds so nice and vulgar. And fun, doesn't it? murmured Ardita. Doesn't it? Can't you see us traveling round and spending money left and right and being worshipped by bellboys and waiters? Oh, blessed are the simple rich, for they inherit the earth. I honestly wish we were that way. I love you, Ardita, he said gently. Her face lost its childish look for a moment and became oddly grave. I love to be with you, she said, more than any man I've ever met.

And I like your looks and your dark old hair, and the way you go over the side of the rail when we come ashore. In fact, Curtis Carlyle, I like all the things you do when you're perfectly natural. I think you've got nerve and you know how I feel about that. Sometimes when you're around I've been tempted to kiss you suddenly and tell you that you were just an idealistic boy with a lot of cast nonsense in his head. perhaps if i were just a little bit older and a little more bored i'd go with you as it is i think i'll go back and marry that other man over across the silver lake the figures of the negroes writhed and squirmed in the moonlight like acrobats who having been too long inactive must go through their tricks from sheer surplus energy in single file they marched weaving in concentric circles now with their heads throred own back now bent over their instruments like piping fawns and from trombone and saxophone ceaselessly whined a blended melody sometimes riotous and jubilant sometimes haunting and plaintive as a death dance from the congo's heart let's dance cried ardita i can't sit still with that perfect jazz going on taking her hand he led her out into a broad stretch of hard sandy soil that the moon flooded with great

They floated out like drifting moths under the rich, hazy light, and as the fantastic symphony wept and exalted and wavered and despaired, Ardita's last sense of reality dropped away, and she abandoned her imagination to the dreamy summer sense of tropical flowers and the infinite starry spaces overhead, feeling that if she opened her eyes, it would be to find herself dancing with a ghost in a land created by her own fancy. this is what i should call an exclusive private dance he whispered i feel mad but delightfully mad we're enchanted the shades of unnumbered generations of cannibals are watching us from high up on the side of the cliff there and i'll bet that the cannibal women are saying that we dance too close and that it was immodest of me to come without my nose-ring they both laughed softly and then their laughter died as over across the lake they heard the trombones stop in the middle of a bar,

and the saxophones give a startled moan and fade out. What's the matter? called Carlisle. After a moment's silence, they made out the dark figure of a man rounding the silver lake at a run. As he came closer, they saw it was Babe in a state of unusual excitement. He drew up before them and gasped out his news in a breath. ship's standing off show about half a mile sir mose he's on watch he says it looks as if she's not anchored a ship what kind of a ship demanded carlyle anxiously dismay was in his voice and ardita's heart gave a sudden wrench as she saw his whole face suddenly droop he say he don't know sir are they landing a boat no sir we'll go up said carlyle

They ascended the hill in silence, Ardita's hand still resting in Carlisle's as it had when they finished dancing. She felt it clinched nervously from time to time, as though he were unaware of the contact, but though he hurt her, she made no attempt to remove it. It seemed an hour's climb before they reached the top and crept cautiously along the silhouated plateau to the edge of the cliff. After one short look, Carlyle involuntarily gave a little cry. It was a revenue boat with six-inch guns mounted for and aft. They know, he said with a short intake of breath. They know they picked up the trail somewhere.

Are you sure they know about the channel? They may be only standing by to take a look at the island in the morning. From where they are they couldn't see the opening in the cliff. They could with field glasses, he said hopelessly. He looked at his wristwatch. It's nearly two now. They won't do anything until dawn, that's certain. Of course, there's always the faint possibility that they're waiting for some other ship to join,

or for a choler. I suppose we may as well stay right here. The hours passed, and they lay there side by side, very silently, their chins in their hands like dreaming children. In back of them, squatted the negroes, patient, resigned, acquiescent, announcing now and then with sonorous snores, that not even the men, squatted the negroes, that not even the negroes, they're the presence of danger could subdue their unconquerable African craving for sleep. Just before five o'clock, Babe approached Carlisle.

There were half a dozen rifles aboard the Narcissus, he said. Had it been decided to offer no resistance? A pretty good fight might be made, he thought, if they worked out some plan. Carlisle laughed and shook his head. That isn't a spick army out there, babe. That's a revenue boat. It'd be like a bow and arrow trying to fight him. machine gun. If you want to bury those bags somewhere and take a chance on recovering them

later, go on and do it. But it won't work. They'd dig this island over from one end to the other. It's a lost battle all round, Babe. Babe inclined his head silently and turned away, and Carlisle's voice was husky as he turned to Ardita. There's the best friend I ever had. He'd die for me and be proud to, if I'd let him. You've given up? I've no choice. Of course there's always one way out. The sure way. But that can wait.

I wouldn't miss my trial for anything. It'll be an interesting experiment in notoriety. Miss Farnham testifies that the pirate's attitude to her was at all times that of a gentleman. Don't, she said. I'm awfully sorry. When the color faded from the sky and lustreless blue changed to lead and gray,

a commotion was visible on the ship's deck, and they made out a group of officers clad in white duck gathered near the rail. They had field glasses in their hands, and were attentively examining the islet. It's all up, said Carlisle grimly. Damn, whispered Ardita. She felt tears gathering in her eyes. We'll go back to the yacht, he said. I prefer that to being hunted out up here like a possum.

Leaving the plateau they descended the hill. and reaching the lake were rode out to the yacht by the silent negroes then pale and weary they sank into the settees and waited half an hour later in the dim gray light the nose of the revenue boat appeared in the channel and stopped evidently fearing that the bay might be too shallow from the peaceful look of the yacht the man and the girl in the settees and the negroes lounging curiously against the rail they evidently judged that there would be no resistance For two boats were lowered casually over the side, one containing an officer in six blue jackets, and the other four rowers, and in the stern two grey-haired men in yachting flannels. Ardita and Carlisle stood up, and half unconsciously started toward each other. Then he paused, and putting his hand suddenly into his pocket, he pulled out a round, glittering object and held it out to her.

"'What is it?' she asked wonderingly. I'm not positive, but I think from the Russian inscription inside that it's your promised bracelet. Where? Where on earth? It came out of one of those bags. You see, Curtis Carlyle and his six black buddies in the middle of their performance in the tea room of the hotel at Palm Beach, suddenly changed their instruments for automatics and held up the crowd. I took this bracelet from a pretty over-rooge woman with red hair. Ardita frowned and then smiled. So that's what you did. You have got nerve. He bowed. A well-known bourgeois quality, he said.

And then dawn slanted dynamically across the deck and flung the shadows reeling into grey corners. The dew rose and turned to golden mist, thin as a dream, enveloping them until they seemed gossamer relics of the late night, infinitely transient and already fading. For a moment, see and sea and sea, sky were breathless, and dawn held a pink hand over the young mouth of life.

Then from out in the lake came the complaint of a rowboat and the swish of oars. Suddenly, against the golden furnace low in the east, their two graceful figures melted into one, and he was kissing her spoiled young mouth. It's a sort of glory, he murmured after a second. She smiled up at him. Happy, are you? her sigh was a benediction an ecstatic surety that she was youth and beauty now as much as she would ever know for another instant life was radiant and time a phantom and their strength eternal then there was a bumping scraping sound as the rowboat scraped alongside Up the ladder scrambled the two gray-haired men, the officer, and two of the sailors with their hands on their revolvers.

Mr. Farnham folded his arms and stood looking at his niece. So, he said, nodding his head slowly. With a sigh her arms unwound from Carlisle's neck, and her eyes, transfigured and far away, fell upon the boarding party. Her uncle saw her upper lip slowly swell into that arrogant pout he knew so well. Well, he repeated savagely, so this is your idea of romance, a runaway affair with a high seas pirate. Ardita glanced at him carelessly. What an old fool you are, she said quietly. Is that the best you can say for yourself?

No, she said as if considering, no, there's something else. There's that well-known phrase with which I have ended most of our conversations for the past few years, Shut up! And with that she turned, included the two old men, the officer, and the two sailors in a curt glance of contempt,

and walked proudly down the companion way. But had she waited an instant longer, she would have heard a sound from her uncle quite unfamiliar in most of their interviews. He gave vent to a whole-hearted, amused chuckle, in which the second old man joined. the latter turned briskly to carlyle who had been regarding this scene with an air of cryptic amusement well toby he said genially you incurable hair-brained romantic chaser of rainbows did you find that she was the person you wanted carlyle smiled confidently why naturally he said i've been perfectly sure ever since i first heard tell of her wild career that's why i had babe send up the rocket last night

i'm glad you did said colonel morland gravely we've been keeping pretty close to you in case you should have trouble with those six strange niggers and we hoped we'd find you two in some such compromising position he sighed well set a crank to catch a crank Your father and I sat up all night, hoping for the best. Or perhaps it's the worst. Lord knows you're welcome to her, my boy. She's run me crazy. Did you give her the Russian bracelet my detective got from that Mimi woman? Carlisle nodded. Sh, he said.

She's coming on deck. Ardita appeared at the head of the companionway and gave a quick, involuntary glance at Carlisle's wrists. A puzzled look passed across her face. back aft the negroes had begun to sing and the cool lake fresh with dawn echoed serenely to their low voices ardita said carlyle unsteadily she swayed a step toward him ardita he replied breathlessly i've got to tell you the truth it was all a plant ardita my name isn't carlyle it's morland toby morland The story was invented, Artida, invented out of thin Florida air. She stared at him, bewildered amazement, disbelief and anger flowing in quick waves across her face.

The three men held their breaths. Morland Sr. took a step toward her. Mr. Farnham's mouth dropped a little open as he waited, panic-stricken for the expected crash. But it did not come. Artita's face became suddenly radiant, and with a little little, laugh she went swiftly to young Morland and looked up at him without a trace of wrath in her gray eyes. Will you swear, she said quietly, that it was entirely a product of your own brain? I swear, said the young Morland eagerly.

She drew his head down and kissed him gently. What an imagination! She said softly and almost enviously. I want you to lie to me just as sweetly as you know how for the rest of my life. The negro's voices floated drowsily back, mingled in an air that she had heard them sing before. Time is a thief, gladness and grief, cling to the leaf as it yellows. What was in the bags, she asked softly. Florida mud, he answered. That was one of the two true things I told you.

Perhaps I can guess the other one, she said, and reaching up on her tiptoe, She kissed him softly in the illustration. End of Section 1 Section 2 of Flappers and Philosophers by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Recording by M.B. The Ice Palace 1

The sunlight dripped over the house like golden paint over an art jar, and the freckling shadows here and there only intensified the rigor of the bath of light. The Butterworth and Larkin houses flanking were entrenched behind great stodgy trees. Only the Happer House took the full sun, and all day long faced the dusty road street with a tolerant, kindly patience. This was the city of Tarleton in southernmost Georgia, September afternoon. Up in her bedroom window, Sally Carroll Happer rested her 19-year-old chin on a 52-year-old sill, and watched Clark Darrow's ancient Ford turn the corner. The car was hot, being partly metallic, it retained all the heat had absorbed or evolved,

and Clark Darrow, sitting bolt upright at the wheel, wore a pained, strained expression, as though he considered himself a spare part and rather likely to break. He laboriously crossed two dust ruts, the wheels squeaking indignantly at the encounter, and then, with a terrifying expression he gave the stupt, steering gear a final wrench and deposited self-end car approximately in front of the happer's steps. There was a plaintive heaving sound, a death-rattle, followed by a short silence, and then the air was rent by a startling whistle. Sally Carroll gazed down sleepily. She started to yawn, but finding this quite impossible unless she raised her chin from the windowsill, changed her mind

and continued silently to regard the car, whose owner sat brilliantly, if perfunctorily, at attention as he waited for an answer to his signal. After a moment the whistle once more split the dusty air. Good morning. With difficulty, Clark twisted his tall body round and bent a distorted glance on the window. Taint moaning, Sally Carroll. Isn't it sure enough? What are you doing?

"'Ein' an apple? Come on go swimming, all too?' "'Reckin' so. How about hurrying up?' "'Sure enough.' Sally Carroll sighed voluminously and raised herself with profound inertia from the floor, where she had been occupied in alternately destroying parts of a green apple and painting paper dolls for her younger sister. She approached a mirror, regarded her expression with a pleased and pleasant languor, dabbed two spots of rouge on her lips and a grain of powder on her nose, and covered her bobbed corn-coloured hair with a rose-littered sunbonnet. Then she kicked over the painting water, said,

Oh, damn, but let it lay, and left the room. How you, Clark? She inquired a minute later as she slipped nimbly over the side of the car. Mighty fine, Sally Carroll. Where we go swimming? out to wall his pool told maryland we'd call by and get her and joe ewing clark was dark and lean and when on foot was rather inclined to stoop his eyes were ominous and his expression somewhat petulant except when startlingly illuminated by one of his frequent smiles clark had i income just enough to keep himself in ease and his car in gasoline and he had spent the two years since he had graduated from Georgia Tech in dozing round the lazy streets of his hometown, discussing how he could best

invest his capital for an immediate fortune. Hanging round, he found not at all difficult. A crowd of little girls had grown up beautifully, the amazing Sally Carroll foremost among them, and they enjoyed being swum with and danced with and made love to in the flower-filled summery evenings, and they all liked Clark immensely. When feminine company pauled, there were half a dozen other ewes who were always just about to do something, and meanwhile were quite willing to join him in a few holes of golf or in a game of billiards, or the consumption of a quart of hard yalla liquor. Every once in a while, one of these contemporaries made a farewell round of calls before going up to New York or Philadelphia or Pittsburgh to go into business, but mostly they

just stayed round in this languid paradise of dreamy skies and firefly evenings and noisy niggery street fairs, and especially of gracious, soft-voiced girls who were brought up on memories instead of money. The Ford, having been excited into a sort of restless, resentful life, Clark and Sally Carroll rolled and rattled down Valley Avenue into Jefferson Street, where the dust road became a pavement, a long, opiate, millicent place, where there were half a dozen prosperous, substantial mansions, and on into the downtown section. Driving was perilous here, for it was shopping time. The population idled casually across the streets, and a drove of low-moaning oxen were being urged along in front of a placid streetcar.

Even the shops seemed only yawning their doors and blinking their windows in the sunshine before retreating into a state of utter and finite coma. "'Sally Carroll,' said Clark suddenly, "'it a fact that you're engaged.' She looked at him quickly. Where'd you hear that? Sure enough, you engaged? That's a nice question. Girl told me you were engaged to a Yankee you met up in Asheville last summer. Sally Carroll sighed.

Never saw such an old town for rumors. Don't marry a Yankee, Sally Carroll. We need you around here. Sally Carroll was silent a moment. Clark, she demanded suddenly, Who on earth shall I marry? Well, I offer my services. Hunter, you couldn't support a wife, she answered cheerfully.

Anyway, I know you too well to fall in love with you. That doesn't mean you ought to marry a Yankee, he persisted. Suppose I love him, he shook his head. You couldn't. He'd be a lot more. different from us, every way. He broke off as he halted the car in front of a rambling, dilapidated house. Marilyn Wade and Joe Ewing appeared in the doorway.

Lo, Sally Carroll! Hi! How you all? Sally Carroll, demanded Marilyn as they started off again. You engaged! Lottie, where'd all this start? Can I look at a man without everybody in town engaging me to him? Clark stared straight in front of him at a bolt on the clattering windshield. Sally Carroll, he said with a curious intensity,

Don't you like us? What? Us down here. Why, Clark, you know I do. I adore all you boys. Then why are you getting engaged to a Yankee? Clark, I don't know. I'm not sure what I'll do, but...

Well, I want to go places and see people. I want my mind to grow. I want to live where things happen on a big scale. What you mean? Oh, Clark, I love you, and I love Joe here and Ben Arn't and you all, but you'll... We'll all be failures? Yes, I don't mean only money failures, but just sort of ineffectual and sad, and... How can I tell you? You mean because we stay here in Tarleton?

Yes, Clark. And because you like it, never want to change things or think or go ahead. He nodded, and she reached over and pressed his hand. Clark, she said softly, I wouldn't change you for the world. You're sweet the way you are. The things that'll make you fail, I'll love always. The living in the past, the lazy days and nights, you'll have and all your carelessness and generosity.

But you're going away? Yes, because I couldn't ever marry you. You have a place in my heart no one else ever could have. But tied down here, I'd get restless. I'd feel I was wasting myself. There's two sides to me, you see. There's the sleepy old side you love, and there's a sort of energy.

The feeling that makes me do wild things. That's the part of me that may be useful somewhere that'll last when I'm not beautiful anymore. She broke off with characteristic suddenness inside. Oh, sweet, kooky, as her mood changed. Half-closing her eyes and tipping back her head till it rested on the seat back, she let the savory breeze fan her eyes

and ripple the fluffy curls of her bobbed hair. They were in the country now. hurrying between tangled growths of bright green coppice and grass and tall trees that sent sprays of foliage to hang a cool welcome over the road. Here and there they passed a battered negro cabin, its oldest white-haired inhabitant smoking a corncob pipe beside the door, and half a dozen scantily clothed pickinneys parading tattered dolls on the wild-grown grass in front.

Farther out were lazy cotton fields, where even the workers seemed in tangible shadows lent by the sun to the earth, not for toil, but to while away some age-old tradition in the golden September fields. And round the drowsy picturesqueness, over the trees and shacks and muddy rivers, flowed the heat, never hostile, only comforting, like a great, warm, nourishing bosom for the infant earth. "'Sally Carroll, we're here!' Poor child's sound asleep.

Honey, you dead at last out of sheer laziness? Water, Sally Carroll! Cool, cool water waiting for you. Her eyes opened sleepily. Hi, she murmured, smiling. Two. In November, Harry Bellamy, tall, broad and brisk, came down from his northern city to spend four days.

His intention was to settle a matter that had been hanging fire since he and Sally Carroll had met in Asheville, North Carolina in midsummer. The settlement took only a quiet afternoon and an evening in front of a glowing open fire, for Harry Bellamy had everything she wanted, and besides she loved him, loved him with that side of her she kept especially for loving. Sally Carroll had several rather clearly defined sides. on his last afternoon they walked and she found their steps tending half unconsciously toward one of her favorite haunts the cemetery when it came in sight gray white and golden green under the cheerful late sun she paused irresolute by the iron gate are you mournful by nature harry she asked with a faint smile mournful not i then let's go in here it depresses some folks but i like it they passed through the gateway and followed a path that led through a wavy valley of graves dusty gray and mouldy for the fifties quaintly carved with flowers and jars for the seventies ornate and hideous for the nineties with fat marble cherubs lying in sodden sleep on stone pillows and great impossible growths of nameless granite flowers.

Occasionally they saw a kneeling figure with tributary flowers, but over most of the graves lay silence, and withered leaves with only the fragrance that their own shadowy memories could waken in living minds. They reached the top of a hill where they were affronted by a tall, round headstone, freckled with dark spots of damp and half grown over with vines. Marjorie Lee, she read, 1844 to 1816. wasn't she nice she died when she was twenty-nine dear marjorie lee she added softly can't you see her harry yes sally carroll he felt a little hand inserted itself into his she was dark i think and she always wore her hair with a ribbon in it and gorgeous hoop skirts of alice blue and old rose yes

"'Oh, she was sweet, Harry! "'And she was the sort of girl born to stand on a wide, pillared porch "'and welcome folks in. "'I think perhaps a lot of men went away to warm meaning to come back to her, "'but maybe none of them ever did.' "'He stooped down close to the stone, "'hunting for any record of marriage. "'There's nothing here to show.

"'Of course not. "'How could there be anything better there "'than just Marjorie Lee, eloquent date. She drew close to him, and an unexpected lump came into his throat as her yellow hair brushed his cheek. You see how she was, don't you, Harry? I see, he agreed gently. I see through your precious eyes. You're beautiful now, so I know she must have been. Silent and close they stood, and he could feel her shoulders trembling a little. An ambling breeze swept up the hill and stirred the brim of her floppy hat.

Let's go down there! She was pointing to a flat stretch on the other side of the hill, where along the green turf were a thousand greyish-white crosses, stretching in endless ordered rows like the stacked arms of a battalion. Those are the Confederate dead, said Sally Carroll simply. They walked along and read the inscriptions, always only a name and a date, sometimes quite indecipherable. The last row is the saddest. See, way over there? Every cross has just a date on it and the word unknown. She looked at him and her eyes brimmed with tears. I can't tell you how real it is to me,

darling, if you don't know. How you feel about it is beautiful to me. No, no, it's not me, it's them. That old time I've tried to have live in me. These were just men, unimportant evidently, or they wouldn't have been unknown. But they died for the most beautiful thing in the world, the dead south. You see, she continued her voice still husky, her eyes glistening with tears. People have these dreams, they fasten on to things, and I've always grown up with that dream. It was so easy because it was all dead. and there weren't any disillusions coming to me.

I've tried in a way to live up to those past standards of noblesse oblige. There's just the last remnants of it, you know, like the roses of an old garden dying all round us. Streaks of strange courtliness and chivalry in some of these boys and stories I used to hear from a Confederate soldier who lived next door, and a few darkies. Oh, Harry, there was something, there was something. I could never make you understand.

but it was there. I understand, he assured her again quietly. Sally Carroll smiled and dried her eyes on the tip of a handkerchief protruding from his breast pocket. You don't feel depressed, do you, lover? Even when I cry, I'm happy here, and I get a sort of strength from it. Hand in hand, they turned and walked slowly away. Finding soft grass, she drew him down to a seat beside her with their backs against the

remnants of a low, broken wall. Wish these three old women would clear out, he complained. I want to kiss you, Sally Carroll. May, too. They waited impatiently for the three bent figures to move off, and then she kissed him until the sky seemed to fade out, and all her smiles and tears to vanish in an ecstasy of eternal seconds. Afterward they walked slowly back together.

While on the corners, Twilight played at somnolent, black and white checkers with the end of day. You'll be up about mid-January, he said, and you've got to stay a month at least. It'll be slick. There's a winter carnival on, and if you've never really seen snow, it'll be like fairyland to you. There'll be skating and skiing and tobogging and slay riding and all sorts of torchlight parades on snow shoes. They haven't had one for years, so they're going to make it a knockout. Will I be cold, Harry? She asked suddenly.

You certainly won't. You may freeze your nose, but you won't be shivery cold. It's hard and dry, you know. I guess I'm a summer child. I don't like any cold I've ever seen. She broke off and they were both silent for a minute. Sally Carroll, he said very slowly. What do you say to March?

I say I love you. March? March, Harry. Three. All night in the Pullman, it was very cold. She rang for the porter to ask for another blanket, and when he couldn't give her one, she tried vainly by squeezing down into the bottom of her berth and doubling back the bedclothes to snatch a few hours' sleep. She wanted to look her best in the morning. She rose at six, and, sliding uncomfortably into her clothes, stumbled up to the diner for a cup of coffee. The snow had filtered into the vestibules and covered the floor with a slippery coating. It was intriguing this cold. It crept in everywhere.

Her breath was quite visible, and she blew into the air with a naive enjoyment. Seated in the diner, she stared out the window at white hills and valleys and scattered pines, whose every branch was a green platter for a cold feast of snow. sometimes a solitary farmhouse would fly by ugly and bleak and lone on the white waist and with each one she had an instant of chill compassion for the souls shut in there waiting for spring as she left the diner and swayed back into the pullman she experienced a surging rush of energy and wondered if she was feeling the bracing air of which harry had spoken this was the north the north her land now then blow ye winds hey-ho a roving i will go she chanted exultantly to herself what's that inquired the porter politely i said brush me off the long wires of the telegraph poles doubled two tracks ran up beside the train three four came a succession of white-roofed houses a glimpse of a trolley-car with frosted windows streets more streets the city she stood for a dazed moment in the frosty station before she saw three fur-bundled figures descending upon her there she is oh sally carroll

sally carroll dropped her bag hi a faintly familiar icy cold face kissed her and then she was in a group of faces all apparently emitting great clouds of heavy smoke she was shaking her she was shaking hands. There were Gordon, a short, eager man of thirty, who looked like an amateur knocked-about model for Harry, and his wife, Myra, a listless lady with flaxen hair under a fur automobile cap. Almost immediately, Sally Carroll thought of her as vaguely Scandinavian. A cheerful chauffeur adopted her bag, and amid ricochets of half-phrases, exclamations, and perfunctory listless, my dears from Myra, they swept each to her. other from the station. They were in a sedan bound through a crooked succession of snowy streets where dozens of little boars were hitching sleds behind grocery wagons and automobiles.

"'Oh!' cried Sally Carroll. "'I want to do that, can we, Harry?' "'Now that's for kids. But we might—' "'It looks like such a circus,' she said regretfully. "'Home was a rambling frame-house, set on a white lap of snow, and there she met a big, grey-haired man of whom she approved, and a lady who was like an egg, and who kissed her. These were Harry's parents. There was a breathless, indescribable hour crammed full of half-sentences,

hot water, bacon and eggs, and confusion, and after that she was alone with Harry in the library, asking him if she dared smoke. It was a large room with a Madonna over the fireplace, and rose upon rows of books in covers of light gold and dark gold and shiny red all the chairs had little lace squares where one's head should rest the couch was just comfortable the books looked as if they had been read some and sally carroll had an instantaneous vision of the battered old library at home with her father's huge medical books and the oil paintings of her three great uncles and the old couch that had been mended up for forty-five years and was still luxurious to dream in this room struck her as being neither attractive nor particularly otherwise it was simply a room with a lot of fairly expensive things in it that all looked about fifteen years old what do you think of it up here demanded harry eagerly does it surprise you is it what you expected i mean you are harry she said quietly and reached out her arms to him

but after a brief kiss he seemed anxious to exhort enthusiasm from her the town i mean do you like it can you feel the pep in the air oh harry she laughed you'll have to give me time you can't just fling questions at me she puffed at her cigarette with a sigh of contentment one thing i want to ask you he began rather apologetically you southerners put quite an emphasis on family and all that not that it isn't quite all right but you'll find it a little different here i mean you'll notice a lot of things that seem to you sort of vulgar display at first sally carroll but just remember that this is a three-generation town everybody has a father and about half of us have grandfathers back of that we don't go of course she murmured our grandfathers you see founded the place and a lot of them had to take some pretty queer jobs while they were doing the founding for instance there's one woman who had presenties about the social model for the town well her father was the first public ash man things like that that. Why, said Sally Carroll, puzzled, did you suppose I was going to make remarks about people? Not at all, interrupted Harry, and I'm not apologizing for anyone either. It's just that, well, a Southern girl came up here last summer and said some unfortunate things, and,

oh, I just thought I'd tell you. Sally Carroll felt suddenly indignant, as though she had been unjustly spanked. But Harry, evidently, considered the subject closed, for he went on with a great surge of enthusiasm. It's carnival time, you know. First in ten years, and there's an ice palace they're building now that's the first they've had since 85, built out of blocks of the clearest ice they could find, on a tremendous scale. She rose, and walking to the window, pushed aside the heavy Turkish portieres and looked out. Oh, she cried suddenly, there's two little boys making a snowman. Harry, do you reckon I can go out and help him? You dream. Come here and kiss me.

She left the window rather reluctantly. I don't guess this is a very kissable climate, is it? I mean, it makes you so you don't want to sit round, doesn't it? We're not going to. I've got a vacation the first week you're here and there's a dinner dance tonight. Oh, Harry, she confessed, subsiding in a heap, half in his... his lap half in the pillows, I sure do feel confused. I haven't got an idea whether I'll like him or not, and I don't know what people expect or anything. You'll have to tell me, honey. I'll tell you, he said softly, if you'll just tell me you're glad to be here. Glad, just awful glad, she whispered, insinuating herself into his arms in her own peculiar way. Where you are is home for me, Harry.

And as she said this, she had the feeling for almost the first time in her life that she was acting apart. That night, amid the gleaming candles of a dinner party, where the men seemed to do most of the talking, while the girl sat in a haughty and expensive aloofness, even Harry's presence on her left failed to make her feel at home. They're a good-looking crowd, don't you think? he demanded. Just look round. There's Spud Hubbard, tackle at Princeton last year. and Junie Morton, he and the Red-Hard fellow next to him, were both Yale hockey captains. Junie was in my class.

Why, the best athletes in the world come from these states around here. This is a man's country, I tell you. Look at John J. Fishburn. Who's he? asked Sally Carroll innocently. Don't you know? I've heard the name. Greatest Wheatman in the Northwest, and one of the greatest financiers in the country. She turned suddenly to a voice on her right.

I guess they forgot to introduce us. My name's Roger Patton. My name is Sally Carol Happer, she said graciously. Yes, I know. Harry told me you were coming. You a relative? No, I'm a professor. Oh, she laughed.

At the university. You're from the south, aren't you? Yes. Tarleton, George. georgia she liked him immediately a reddish-brown moustache under watery blue eyes that had something in them that these other eyes lacked some quality of appreciation they exchanged stray sentences through dinner and she made up her mind to see him again after coffee she was introduced to numerous young men who danced with conscious precision and seemed to take it for granted that she wanted to talk about nothing except harry heavens she thought they talk as if my being engaged made me older than they are as if i'd tell their mothers on them in the south an engaged girl even a young married woman expected the same amount of half-affectionate badinage and flattery that would be accorded a debutante but here all that seemed banned one young man after getting well started on the subject of sally carroll's eyes and how they had allured him ever since she entered the room went into a violent

confusion when he found she was visiting the Bellamy's, was Harry's fiancée. He seemed to feel as though he had made some risque and inexcusable blunder, became immediately formal, and left her at the first opportunity. She was rather glad when Roger Patton cut in on her and suggested that they sit out a while. Well, he inquired, blinking cheerily, how's Carmen from the south? Mighty fine. How's—how's dangerous Danvers? McGrew, sorry, but he's the only northerner I know much about. He seemed to enjoy that. Of course, he confessed, as a professor of literature, I'm not supposed to have read Dangerous

Dan McGrew. Are you a native? No, I'm a Philadelphian, imported from Harvard to teach French, but I've been here ten years. Nine years, 364 days longer than me. Like it here? "'A-huh, sure do.' "'Really?' "'Well, why not?

"'Don't I look as if I were having a good time?' "'I just saw you look out the window a minute ago, and shiver.' "'Just my imagination,' laughed Sally Carroll. "'I'm used to having everything quiet outside, "'and sometimes I look out and see a flurry of snow "'and it's just as if something dead was moving.' "'He nodded appreciatively. "'Ever been north before?'

spent two julyes in ashville north carolina nice looking crowd aren't they suggested patten indicating the swirling floor sally carroll started this had been harry's remark sure are they're canine what she flushed i'm sorry that sounded worse than i meant it you see i always think of people as feline or canine irrespective of sex Which are you? I'm feline. So are you. So are most southern men and most of these girls here. What's Harry? Harry's canine distinctly.

All the men I've met tonight seem to be canine. What does canine imply? A certain conscious masculinity as opposed to subtlety? Reck and so, I never analyzed it. Only I just look at people and say, canine or feline run off. It's right absurd, I guess. Not at all. I'm interested.

I used to have a theory about these people. I think they're freezing up. What? I think they're growing like Swedes. Ibsen-esque, you know. Very gradually getting gloomy and melancholy. It's these long winters. Ever read any Ibsen?

She shook her head. Well, you find in his character, a certain brooding rigidity. They're righteous, narrow and cheerless, without infinite possibilities for great sorrow or joy. Without smiles or tears? Exactly. That's my theory. You see, there are thousands of Swedes up here.

They come, I imagine, because the climate is very much like their own, and there's been a gradual mingling. There are probably not half a dozen here tonight, but we've had four Swedish governors. Am I boring you? I'm mighty interested. Your future sister-in-law is half Swedish. Personally, I like her, but my theory is that Swedes react rather badly on us as a whole.

Scandinavians, you know, have the largest suicide rate in the world. Why do you live here if it's so depressing? Oh, it doesn't get me. I'm pretty well cloistered, and I suppose books mean more than people to me anyway. but riders all speak about the south being tragic you know spanish signoritos black hair and daggers and haunting music he shook his head no the northern races are the tragic races they don't indulge in the cheering luxury of tears sally carroll thought of her graveyard she supposed that that was vaguely what she had meant when she said it didn't depress her "'The Italians are about the gayest people in the world.' "'But it's a dull subject,' he broke off.

"'Anyway, I want to tell you you're marrying a pretty fine man.' "'Sally Carroll was moved by an impulse of confidence. "'I know. I'm the sort of person who wants to be taken care of after a certain point, "'and I feel sure I will be.' "'Shall we dance?' "'You know,' he continued as they rose. "'It's encouraging to find a girl who knows what she's marrying for. nine-tenths of them think of it as a sort of walking into a moving picture sunset.

She laughed and liked him immediately. Two hours later on the way home, she nestled near Harry in the backseat. Oh, Harry, she whispered, it's so cold. But it's warm in here, darling girl. But outside it's cold. And oh, that howling wind! She buried her face deep in his face deep in his eyes. fur coat and trembled involuntarily as his cold lips kissed the tip of her ear.

Four. The first week of her visit passed in a whirl. She had her promised toboggan ride at the back of an automobile through a chill January twilight. Swaved in furs, she put in a morning tobogging on the country club hill, even tried skiing to sail through the air for a glorious moment and then land in a tangled laughing bundle on a soft snowdrift. she liked all the winter sports except an afternoon spent snowshoeing over a glaring plain under pale yellow sunshine but she soon realized that these things were for children that she was being humoured and that the enjoyment round her was only a reflection of her own

at first the bellamy family puzzled her the men were reliable and she liked them to mr bellamy especially with his iron-gray hair and energetic dignity she took an immediate fancy once she found that he was born in kentucky this made of him a link between the old life and the new but toward the women she felt a definite hostility myra her future sister-in-law seemed the essence of spiritless conventionality her conversation was so utterly devoid of personality that sally carroll who came from a country where a certain amount of charm and assurance could be taken for granted in the women was inclined to despise her if those women aren't beautiful she thought they're nothing they just fade out when you look at them they're glorified domestics men are the centre of every mixed group lastly there was mrs bellamy whom sally carroll detested the first day's impression of an egg had been confirmed an egg with a cracked vainy voice and such an ungracious dumpiness of carriage that sally carroll felt that if she once fell she would surely scramble in addition mrs bellamy seemed to typify the town and being innately hostile to strangers she called sally carroll sally and could not be persuaded that the town was she could not be persuaded that the town was she was indeed she wasa lady carol sally and could not be persuaded that the double name was anything more than a tedious ridiculous nickname to sally carroll this shortening of her name was like presenting her to the public half-clothed she loved sally carroll she loathed sally she knew also that harry's mother disapproved of her bobbed hair and she had never dared smoke downstairs after that first day when mrs bellamy had come into the library sniffing violently of all the men she met she preferred Roger Patton, who was a frequent visitor at the house.

He never again alluded to the Ibsen-esque tendency of the populace, but when he came in one day and found her curled upon the sofa bent over pure gint, he laughed and told her to forget what he'd said, that it was all wrought. And then one afternoon, in her second week, she and Harry hovered on the edge of a dangerously steep quarrel. She considered that he precipitated it entirely, though the Serbia in the case was an unknown man who had not had his trousers pressed. They had been walking homeward between mounds of high-piled snow and under a sun which Sally Carroll scarcely recognized.

They passed a little girl done up in grey wool until she resembled a small teddy bear, and Sally Carroll could not resist a gasp of maternal appreciation. Look! Harry! What? That little girl! Did you see her face? Yes, why? It was red as a little strawberry.

Oh, she was cute. Why, your own face is almost as red as that already. Everybody's healthy here. We're out in the cold as soon as we're old enough to walk. Wonderful climate. She looked at him and had to agree. He was mighty healthy looking. So was his brother.

And she had noticed the new red in her own cheeks that very morning. suddenly their glances were caught and held and they stared for a moment at the street corner ahead of them a man was standing there his knees bent his eyes gazing upward with a tense expression as though he were about to make a leap toward the chilly sky and then they both exploded into a shout of laughter for coming closer they discovered it had been a ludicrous momentary illusion produced by the extreme bagginess of the man's trousers i reckon that's one on us she laughed he must be a southerner judging by those trousers suggested harry mischievously why harry her surprised look must have irritated him those damned southerners sally carroll's eyes flashed don't call him that i'm sorry dear said harry malignantly apologetic but you know what i think of them they're sort of sort of degenerates, not at all like the old southerners. They've lived so long down there with all the colored people that they've gotten lazy and shiftless. Hush your mouth, Harry, she cried angrily. They're not. They may be lazy. Anybody would be in that climate, but they're my best friends,

and I don't want to hear them criticised in any such sweeping way. Some of them are the finest men in the world. Now I know. They're all right when they come north to college, but of all the hang-dog, ill-dressed, slovenly lot I ever saw, a bunch of small-town southerners are the worst." Sally Carroll was clinching her gloved hands and biting her lip furiously. "'Why,' continued Harry, "'there was one at my class at New Haven, and we all thought that at last we'd found the true type of southern aristocrat, but it turned out that he wasn't an aristocrat at all, just the son of a northern carpet-bagger who owned about all the

cotton-round mobile.' a southerner wouldn't talk the way you're talking now she said evenly they haven't the energy or the something else i'm sorry sally carroll but i've heard you say yourself that you'd never marry that's quite different i told you i wouldn't want to tie my life to any of the boys that are round tarleton now but i never made any sweep in generalities they walked along in silence i probably spread it on a bit thick sally carroll i'm sorry she nodded but made no answer five minutes later as they stood in the hallway she suddenly threw her arms round him oh harry she cried her eyes brimming with tears let's get married next week i'm afraid of having fusses like that i'm afraid harry it wouldn't be that way if we were married but harry being in the wrong was still irritated that'd be idiotic we decided on march the tears in sally carroll's eyes faded her expression hardened slightly very well i suppose i shouldn't have said that harry melted dear little nut he said come and kiss me and let's forget that very night at the end of a vaudeville performance the orchestra played dixie and sally carroll felt something stronger and more enduring than her tears and smiles of the day brim up inside her. She leaned forward, gripping the arms of her chair, until her face grew crimson.

"'Sort of get you, dear?' whispered Harry. But she did not hear him. To the spirited throb of the violins and the inspiring beat of the kettle-drums, her own old ghosts were marching by and on into the darkness, and as Fife's whistled and sighed in the low encore, they seemed so nearly out of sight that she could have waved goodbye. Away, away, away, away down south in Dixie. Away, away, away, away down south in Dixie. Five. It was a particularly cold night.

A sudden thaw had nearly cleared the streets the day before, but now they were traversed again with a powdery wraith of loose snow that travelled in wavy lines before the feet of the wind, and filled the lower air with a fine particle mist. There was no sky, only a dark, ominous tent that draped in the tops of the streets, and was in reality a vast approaching army of snowflakes, while over it all, chilling away the comfort from the brown and green glow of lighted windows, and muffling the steady trot of the horse pulling their sleigh,

interminably washed the north wind. It was a dismal town, after all, she thought, dismal. Sometimes at night it had seemed to her as, though no one lived here. They had all gone long ago, leaving lighted houses to be covered in time by tooming heaps of sleet. Oh, if there should be snow on her grave! To be beneath great piles of it all winter long, where even her headstone would be a light shadow against light shadows. Her grave, a grave that should be flower-strewn and washed with sun and rain. She thought again of those isolated country houses that her train had passed, and of the life there the long winter through,

the ceaseless glare through the windows, the crust forming on the soft drifts of snow, finally the slow, cheerless melting, and the harsh spring of which Roger Patton had told her. Her spring, to lose it forever, with its lilacs and the lazy sweetness it stirred in her heart. She was laying away that spring. Afterwards she would lay away that sweetness. With a gradual insistence the storm broke. Sally Carroll felt a film of flakes melt quickly on her eyelashes, and Harry reached over a furry arm and threw down her complicated flannel cap.

Then the small flakes came in skirmish line, and the horse bent his neck patiently, as a transparency of white appeared momentarily on his coat. "'Oh, he's cold, Harry,' she said quickly. "'Who the horse? Oh, no, he isn't. He likes it.' After another ten minutes, they turned a corner and came in sight at their destination. On a tall hill outlined in vivid, glaring green against the wintry sky, stood the ice palace. It was three stories in the air, with battlements and embrasures and narrow icicled windows,

and the innumerable electric lights inside made a gorgeous transparency of the great central hall. Sally Carroll clutched Harry's hand under the fur robe. It's beautiful, he cried excitedly. My golly, it's beautiful, isn't it? They haven't had one here since 85. Somehow the notion of their not having been one since 85 oppressed her. Ice was a ghost, and this mansion of it was surely peopled by those shades of of the eighties, with pale faces and blurred, snow-filled hair.

Come on, dear, said Harry. She followed him out of the sleigh and waited while he hitched the horse. A party of four, Gordon, Myra, Roger Patton, and another girl, drew up beside them with a mighty jingle of bells. There were quite a crowd already, bundled in fur or sheepskin, shouting and calling to each other as they moved through the snow, which was now so far. thick that people could scarcely be distinguished a few yards away. It's a hundred and seventy feet tall, Harry was saying to a muffled figure beside him as they trudged

toward the entrance. Cover six thousand square yards. She caught snatches of conversation. One main hall, walls twenty to forty inches thick, and the ice cave has almost a mile of this Canuck who built it. they found their way inside and dazed by the magic of the great crystal walls sally carroll found herself repeating over and over two lines from kubla khan it was a miracle of rare device a sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice in the great glittering cavern with the dark shut out she took a seat on a wooden bench and the evening's oppression lifted harry was right it was beautiful and her gaze travelled the smooth surface of the walls the blocks for which had been selected for their purity and clearness to obtain this opalescent translucent effect

look here we go oh boy cried harry a band in a far corner struck up hail hail the gang's all here which echoed over to them in wild muddled acoustics and then the lights suddenly went out silence seemed to flow down the icy sides and sweep over them sally carroll could still see her white breath in the darkness and a dim row of pale faces over on the other side the music eased to a sighing complaint and from outside drifted in the full-throated resonant chant of the marching clubs it grew louder like some peon of a viking tribe traversing an ancient wild it swelled they were coming nearer then a row of torches appeared and another and another and keeping time with their moccasined feet a long column of gray mackinod figures swept in snow-shoes slung at their shoulders torches soaring and flickering as their voices rose along the great walls the gray column ended and another followed the light streaming luridly this time over red toboggan caps and flaming crimson mackinoles and as they entered they took up the refrain then came a long platoon of blue and white of green of white of brown and yellow those white are the wakuda club whispered harry eagerly those are the men you've met round at dances the volume of the voices grew the great cavern was a phantasmagoria of torches waving in great banks of fire of colours and the rhythm of soft leather steps the leading column turned and whole platoon deployed in front of platoon until the whole procession made a solid flag of flame and then from thousands of voices burst a mighty shout that filled the air like a crash of thunder and set the torches wavering it was magnificent it was tremendous

to sally carroll it was the north offering sacrifice on some mighty altar to the gray pagan god of snow as the shout died the band struck up again and there came more singing and then long reverberating cheers by each club she sat very quiet listening while the staccato cries rent the stillness and then she started for there was a volley of explosion and great clouds of smoke went up here and there through the cavern the flashlight photographers at work and the council was over with the band at their head the clubs formed in column once more took up their chant and began to march out come on shouted harry we want to see the labyrinths downstairs before they turned the lights off they all rose and started toward the chute harry and sally carroll in the lead her little mitten buried in his big fur gauntlet at the bottom of the chute was a long empty room of ice with the ceiling so low that they had to stoop and their hands were parted before she realized what he intended harry had darted down one of the half-dozen glittering passages that opened into the room and was only a vague receding blot against the green shimmer harry she called come on he cried back she looked round the empty chamber the rest of the party had evidently decided to go home were already outside somewhere in the blundering snow She hesitated, and then darted in after Harry.

Harry! she shouted. She had reached a turning point thirty feet down. She heard a faint muffled answer far to the left, and with a touch of panic flew toward it. She passed another turning, two more yawning alleys. Harry! No answer. She started to run straight forward, and then turned like lightning and sped back the way she had come, enveloped in a sudden icy terror. She reached a turn. Was it here? Took the left and came to what

should have been the outlet into the long, low room, but it was only another glittering passage with darkness at the end. She called again, but the walls gave back a flat, lifeless echo with no reverberations. Retracing her steps, she turned another corner, this time following a wide passage. It was like the green lane between the parted waters of the Red Sea, like a damp vault connecting empty tombs. She slipped a little now as she walked, for ice had formed on the bottom of her overshoes. She had to run her gloves along the half-slipery, half-sticky walls to keep her balance. Harry! Still no answer. The sound she made bounced mockingly down to the end of the passage. Then, on an instant, the lights went out, and she was in complete darkness.

She gave a small, frightened cry and sank down into a cold little heap on the ice. She felt her left knee do something as she fell, but she scarcely noticed it as some deep terror, far greater than any fear of being lost, settled upon her. She was alone with this presence that came out of the north, the drearing loneliness that rose from ice-bound whalers in the Arctic seas, from smokeless, trackless wastes, where were strewn the whitened bones of adventure. It was an icy breath of death. It was rolling down low across the land to clutch at her. With a furious, despairing energy, she rose again and started blindly down the darkness. She must get out. She might be lost in here for days, freeze to death, and lie embedded in the ice like corpses she had read of, kept

perfectly preserved until the melting of a glacier. Harry probably thought that she had left with the others. He had gone by now. No one would know until the next day. She reached pitifully for the wall. Forty inches thick, they had said. Forty inches thick. Oh! On both sides of her along the walls, she felt things creeping, damp souls that haunted this place, this town, this north. Oh, said somebody! Said somebody!

She cried aloud. Clark Darrow, he would understand. Or Joe Ewing. She couldn't be left here to wander forever. To be frozen, heart, body, and soul. This her, this Sally Carroll. Why, she was a happy thing. She was a happy little girl.

She liked warmth and summer and Dixie. These things were foreign. Foreign. You're not crying. Something said aloud. You'll never cry any more. Your tears would just freeze. All tears freeze up here.

She sprawled full length on the ice. Oh, God, she faltered. A long single file of minutes went by, and with a great weariness she felt her eyes closing. Then someone seemed to sit down near her and take her face in warm, soft hands. She looked up gratefully. Why, it's Marjorie Lee,

she crooned softly to herself. I knew you'd come. It really was Marjorie Lee, and she was just as Sally Carroll had known she would be, with a young white brow and wide welcoming eyes and a hoop skirt of some soft material that was quite comforting to rest on. Marjorie Lee. It was getting darker now and darker. All those tombstones ought to be repainted, sure enough.

Only that would spoil them, of course. Still, you ought to be able to see him. Then, after a succession of moments that went by fast and then slow, but seemed to be ultimately resolving themselves into a multitude of blurred rays converging toward a pale yellow sun. She heard a great cracking noise break her newfound stillness. It was the sun. It was a light! A torch and a torch beyond that, and another one, and voices.

A face took flesh below the torch, heavy arms raised her, and she felt something on her cheek. It felt wet. Someone had seized her and was rubbing her face with snow How ridiculous! With snow! Sally Carroll! Sally Carroll! It was dangerous Dan McGrew And two other faces she didn't know. Child! Child! We've been looking for you for two hours! Harry's half crazy!

Things came rushing back into place. The singing, the torches, the great shout of the marching clubs. She squirmed in Patton's arms and gave a long, low cry. Oh, I want to get out of here. I'm going back home. Take me home. Her voice rose to a scream that sent a chill to Harry's heart as he came racing down the next passage. Tomorrow, she cried with delirious, unrestrained passion. Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Six. wealth of golden sunlight poured a quite enervating yet oddly comforting heat over the house where day long it faced the dusty stretch of road. Two birds were making a great to-do in a cool spot found among the branches of a tree next door,

and down the street a colored woman was announcing herself melodiously as a purveyor of strawberries. It was April afternoon. Sally Carol Happer, resting her chin on her arm, and her arm on an old woman. window seat, gazed sleepily down over the spangled dust whence the heat waves were rising for the first time this spring. She was watching a very ancient Ford turn a perilous corner and rattle and groan to a jolting stop at the end of the walk. She made no sound, and in a minute a strident, familiar whistle rent the air. Sally Carroll smiled and blinked. Good moan, a head appeared tortuous, from under the car top below.

Tate moaning, Sally Carroll. Sure enough, she said an affected surprise. I guess maybe not. What you doing? Eaton, green peach. Expect to die any minute. Clark twisted himself a last impossible notch to get a view of her face. Water's warm as a kettle of steam, Sally Carroll.

Want to go swimming? I hate to move. sighed Sally Carroll lazily. But I reckon so. End of Section 2. Section 3 of Flappers and Philosophers by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Recording by M.B. Head and shoulders. 1. In 1915, Horace Tarbox was 13 years old. He took the examinations for entrance to Princeton University and received the grade A excellent, in Caesar, Cicero, Virgil, Xenophon, Homer, algebra, plane geometry, solid geometry, and chemistry.

Two years later, while George M. Cohan was composing over there, Horace was leading the sophomore class by several lengths and digging out theses on the syllogism as an obsolete scholastic form, and during the Battle of Chateau-Tierry, he was sitting at his desk deciding whether or not to wait until his 17th birthday before beginning his series of essays on the pragmatic bias of the new realists. After a while, some newsboy told him that the war was over, and he was glad because it meant that Pete brothers, publishers, would get out their new edition of Spinoza's improvement of the understanding.

Wars were all very well in their way, made young men self-reliant or something, but Horace felt that he could never forgive the president for allowing a brass band to play under his window the night of the false armistice, causing him to leave three important sentences out of his thesis on German idealism. The next year he went up to Yale to take his degree as Master of Arts. He was seventeen then, tall and slender, with near-sighted gray eyes and an air of keeping himself utterly detached from the mere words he let drop. "'I never feel as though I'm talking to him,' expostulated Professor Dillinger to a sympathetic colleague. He makes me feel as though I were talking to his representative. I always expect him to say, well, I'll ask myself and find out.'

And then, just as nonchalantly as though Horace Tarbox had been Mr. Beef the Butcher or Mr. Hat the haberdasher, life reached in, seized him, handled him, stretched him, and unrolled him like a piece of Irish lace on a Saturday afternoon bargain counter. To move in the literary fashion, I should say that this was all because, when way back in colonial days the hardy pioneers had come to a bald place in Connecticut and asked of each other, Now what should we build here? The hardiest one among him had answered, Let's build a town where theatrical managers can try out musical comedies. How, afterward, they founded Yale College there to try the musical comedies on, is a story everyone knows.

At any rate, one December, home, James, opened at the Schubert, and all the students encored Marcia Meadow, who sang a song about the blundering blimp in the first act and did a shaky, shivery, celebrated dance in the last. Marsha was nineteen. She didn't have wings, but audiences agreed generally that she didn't need them. she was a blonde by natural pigment and she wore no paint on the streets at high noon outside of that she was no better than most women it was charlie moon who promised her five thousand palmauls if she would pay a call on horace tarbox prodigy extraordinary charlie was a senior in sheffield and he and horace were first cousins they liked and pitied each other Horace had been particularly busy that night. The failure of the Frenchman Laurier to appreciate the significance of the new realists was preying on his mind. In fact, his only reaction to a low, clear-cut rap at his study was to make him speculate as to whether any rap would have actual existence, without an ear there to hear it. He fancied he was verging more and more toward pragmatism.

But at that moment, though he did not know it, he was verging with astounding rapidity toward something quite different. The rap sounded. Three seconds leaked by. The rap sounded. Come in, muttered Horace automatically. He heard the door open and then close, but, bent over his book in the big armchair before the fire.

He did not look up. Leave it on the bed in the other room, he said. said absently. Leave what on the bed in the other room? Marsha Meadow had to talk her songs, but her speaking voice was like by-play on a harp. The laundry. I can't. Horace stirred impatiently in his chair.

Why can't you? Why, because I haven't got it? Hmm, he replied testily. Suppose you go back and get it. across the fire from horace was another easy-chair he was accustomed to change to it in the course of an evening by way of exercise and variety one chair he called barkley the other he called hume he suddenly heard his sound as of a rustling diaphanous form sinking into hume he glanced up well said marcia with the sweet smile she used in act two oh the duke so liked my dancing well omar kai am here i am beside you singing in the wilderness horace stared at her dazedly the momentary suspicion came to him that she existed there only as a phantom of his imagination women didn't come into men's rooms and sink into men's heumes women brought laundry and took your seat in the street car and Married you later on when you were old enough to know fetters.

This woman had clearly materialized out of Hume. The very froth of her brown, gauzy dress was an emanation from Hume's leather arm there. If he looked long enough he would see Hume right through her, and then he would be alone again in the room. He passed his fist across his eyes. He really must take up those trapeze exercises again. For Pete's sake, don't look so critical, objected the emanation pleasantly.

I feel as if you were going to wish me away with that patent dome of yours, and then there wouldn't be anything left of me except my shadow in your eyes. Horace coughed. Coughing was one of his two gestures. When he talked, he forgot he had a body at all. It was like hearing a phonograph record by a singer who had been dead a long time. What do you want, he asked. I want them letters, whined Marcia melodramatically.

Them letters of mine you bought from my grandsire in ancient. "'1881.' "'Horres, considered. "'I haven't got your letters,' he said evenly. "'I'm only seventeen years old. "'My father was not born until March 3rd, 1879. "'You evidently have me confused with someone else.' "'You're only seventeen,' repeated Marcia suspiciously.

"'Only seventeen.' "'I knew a girl,' said Marcia reminiscently, "'who went on the ten-twenty-thirty-thirty when she was. was sixteen. She was so stuck on herself that she could never say sixteen without putting the only before it. We got to calling her only Jesse, and she's just where she was when she started, only worse. Only is a bad habit, Omar. Sounds like an alibi. My name is not Omar. I know, agreed Marsha nodding. Your name's Horace. I just call you, Omar, because you remind me of a smoked cigarette. And I haven't. Your

letters. I doubt if I've ever met your grandfather. In fact, I think it very improbable that you yourself were alive in 1881.' Marcia stared at him in wonder. "'Me? 1881? Why, sure. I was second-line stuff when the Florida sexette was still in the convent. I was the original nurse to Mrs. Sol Smith's Juliet. Why, Omar, I was a canteen singer during the War of 1812.' Horace's mind made a sudden, successful leap, and he grinned. Did Charlie Moon put you up to this? Marcia regarded him inscrutably.

Who's Charlie Moon? Small, wide nostrils, big ears? She grew several inches and sniffed. I'm not in the habit of noticing my friend's nostrils. Then it was Charlie. Marcia bit her lip, and then yawned. Oh, let's change this subject, Omar. I'll pull a snore in this chair,

in a minute. Yes, replied Horace gravely. Hume has often been considered soporific. Who's your friend? And will he die? Then, of a sudden, Horace Tarbox rose slenderly and began to pace the room with his hands in his pockets. This was his other gesture. I don't care for this, he said, as if he were talking to himself, at all. If not that I mind you're being here, I don't. You're quite a pretty little thing. But I don't like Charlie Moon sending you up here. Am I a laboratory experiment on which the janitors as well as the chemists can make experiments? Is my intellectual development humorous in any way?

Do I look like the pictures of the little Boston boy in the comic magazines? Has that callow-ass moon, with his eternal tales about his week in Paris, any right to— No, interrupted Marcia emphatically, and you're a sweet boy. Come here and kiss me. Horace stopped quickly in front of her. "'Why do you want me to kiss you?' he asked intently. "'Do you just go round kissing people?'

"'Why, yes,' admitted Marcia, unruffled. "'That's all life is, just going round kissing people.' "'Well,' replied Horace emphatically, "'I must say your ideas are horribly garbled. "'In the first place, life isn't just that, "'and in the second place I won't kiss you. "'It might get to be a habit, and I can't get rid of it. habits. This year I've got in the habit of lolling in bed until 7.30." Marcia nodded,

understandingly. "'Do you ever have any fun?' she asked. "'What do you mean by fun?' "'See here,' said Marcia sternly. "'I like you, Omar, but I wish you'd talk as if you had a line on what you were saying. You sound as if you were gargling a lot of words in your mouth and lost a bet every time you spilled a few. I asked you if you ever had any fun.' Horace shook his head.

"'Later, perhaps,' he answered. "'You see, I'm a plan. I'm an experiment. I don't say that I don't get tired of it sometimes. I do. Yet, oh, I can't explain. But what you and Charlie Moon call fun wouldn't be fun to me. Please explain.'

Horace stared at her, started to speak, and then, changing his mind, resumed his walk. After an unsuccessful attempt to determine whether or not he was looking at, her. Marsha smiled at him. Please explain. Horace turned. If I do, will you promise to tell Charlie Moon that I wasn't in? Uh-huh. Very well, then.

Here's my history. I was a why child. I wanted to see the world go round. My father was a young economics professor at Princeton. He brought me up on the system of answering every question I asked him to the best of his ability. My response to that gave him the idea of making an experiment in precocity. To aid in the massacre I had ear trouble, seven operations between the age of nine and twelve. Of course this kept me away from other boys and made me ripe for forcing.

Anyway, while my generation was laboring through Uncle Remus, I was honestly enjoying Catullus in the original. I passed off my college examinations when I was thirteen because I couldn't help it. My chief associates were professors, and I took a tremendous pride in knowing that I had a fine intelligence, for though I was unusually gifted, I was not abnormal in other ways. When I was sixteen, I got tired of being a freak. I decided that someone had made a bad mistake. Still, as I'd gone that far, I concluded to finish it up by taking my degree of Master of Arts. My chief interest in life is the study of modern philosophy. I am a realist in the school of Anton Laurier.

with Briggsonian Frimmings, and I'll be eighteen years old in two months. That's all. "'Hugh!' exclaimed Marcia. "'That's enough. You do a neat job with the parts of speech.' "'Satisfied?' "'No, you haven't kissed me.' "'It's not in my program,' demurred Horace.

"'Understand that I don't pretend to be above physical things. They have their place, but—' "'Oh, don't be so darned reasonable.' "'I can't help it.' I hate these slot-machine people. I assure you, I began Horace. Oh, shut up. My own rationality.

I didn't say anything about your nationality. You're American, aren't you? Yes. Well, that's okay with me. I got a notion I want to see you do something that isn't in your high-brow program. I want to see if, what you call them with Brazilian trimmings, that thing he said you were, can be a little human. Horace shook his head again.

I won't kiss you. My life is blighted, muttered Marcia tragically. I'm a beaten woman. I'll go through life without ever having a kiss with Brazilian trimmings. She sighed. Anyways, Omar, will you come and see my show? What show? I'm a wicked actress from Home James.

Light opera? Yes, at a stretch. One of the characters is a Brazilian rice platter. That might interest you. I saw the Bohemian girl once, reflected Horace aloud. I enjoyed it, to some extent. Then you'll come? Well, I'm—oh, I know.

You've got to run down to Brazil for the weekend. Not at all. I'd be delighted to come. Marcia clapped her hands. Good for you. I'll mail you a ticket. Thursday night? Why, I—

Good, Thursday night it is. She stood up and, walking close to him, laid both hands. hands on his shoulders. I like you, Omar. I'm sorry I tried to kid you. I thought you'd be sort of frozen, but you're a nice boy. He eyed her sardonically. I'm several thousand generations older than you are.

You carry your age well. They shook hands gravely. My name's Marcia Meadow, she said emphatically. Remember it, Marsha Meadow. And I won't tell Charlie Moon you were in. An instant later, as she was skimming down the last flight of stairs three at a time, she heard a voice call over the upper banister, Oh, say!

She stopped and looked up, made out a vague form leaning over. Oh, say, called the prodigy again. Can you hear me? Here's your connection, Omar. I hope I haven't given you the impression that I consider kissing intrinsically irrational. Impression? Why, you didn't even give me the kiss? kiss. Never fret. So long. Two doors near her opened curiously at the sound of a feminine voice.

A tentative cough sounded from above. Gathering her skirts, Marcia dived wildly down the last flight and was swallowed up in the murky Connecticut air outside. Upstairs Horace paced the floor of his study. From time to time he glanced toward Barclay, waiting there in suave, dark red respectability, an open book lying suggestively on his cushions. And then he found that his circuit of the floor was bringing him each time nearer to Hume. There was something about Hume that was strangely and inexpressibly different. The diaphanous form still seemed hovering near, and had Horace sat there, he would have felt as if he were sitting on a lady's lap.

And though Horace couldn't have named the quality of difference, there was such a quality, quite intangible, to the speculative mind, but real nevertheless. Hume was radiating something that, in all the two hundred years of his influence, he had never radiated before. Hume was radiating Atar of roses. Two. On Thursday night, Horace Tarboks sat in an aisle seat in the fifth row and witnessed Home James. Oddly enough, he found that he was enjoying himself. the cynical students near him were annoyed at his audible appreciation of the time-honored jokes in the hammerstein tradition but horace was waiting with anxiety for marcia meadow singing her song about a jazz-bound blundering blimp when she did appear radiant under a floppy flower-faced hat a warm glow settled over him and when the song was over he did not join in the storm of applause he felt somewhat numb

in the intermission after the second act an usher materialized beside him demanded to know if you were mr tarbox and then handed him a note written in a round adolescent hand horace read it in some confusion while the ushered with withering patience in the aisle dear omar after the show i always grow an awful hunger if you want to satisfy it for me in the taft grill just communicate your answer to the big timber guide that you will be able to the big timber guide that you want to satisfy it for me in the taft grill just communicate your answer to the big timber guide that that brought this and oblige. Your friend, Marcia Meadow. Tell her, he coughed, tell her that it will be quite all right. I'll meet her in front of the theater. The big timber guide smiled arrogantly.

I guess she meant for you to come around to the stage door. Where is it? Oside, turn your left, down the alley. What? Oside, turned you left, down the alley. the arrogant person withdrew a freshman behind horace snickered then half an hour later sitting in the taft grill opposite the hair that was yellow by natural pigment the prodigy was saying an odd thing do you have to do that dance in the last act he was saying earnestly i mean would they dismiss you if you refuse to do it marcia grinned it's fun to do it i like to do it and then horace came out with a faux pa i should think you detest it he remarked succinctly the people behind me were making remarks about your bosom

marcia blushed fiery red i can't help that she said quickly the dance to me is only a sort of acrobatic stunt lord it's hard enough to do i rub liniment into my shoulders for an hour every night do you have fun while you are on the stage uh huh sure i got into the habit of having people look at me omar and i like it hmm horace sank into a brownish study how's the brazilian trimmings hmm repeated horace and then after a pause where does the play go from here new york for how long all depends winter maybe oh "'Cumming up to lay eyes on me, Omar, or aren't you interested?' "'Not as nice here, is it, as it was up in your room. "'I wish we was there now. "'I feel idiotic in this place,' confessed Horace, "'looking round him nervously.

"'Too bad. We got along pretty well.' "'At this, he looked suddenly so melancholy "'that she changed her tone, and reaching over, patted his hand. "'Have her take an actress out to supper before?' "'No,' said Horace, miserable. and I never will again. I don't know why I came tonight. Here under all these lights and with all these people laughing and chattering I feel completely out of my sphere. I don't know what to talk to you about."

We'll talk about me. We talked about you last time." Very well. Well, my name really is Meadow, but my first name isn't Marcia. It's Veronica. I'm nineteen. question how did the girl make her leap to the footlights answer she was born in pesaic new jersey and up to a year ago she got the right to breathe by pushing nobiscos in marcell's tea-room in trenton she started going with a guy named robins a singer in the trent house cabaret and he got her to try a song and dance with him one evening in a month we were filling the supper-room every night then we went to new york with meet my friend letters thick as a pile of napkins in two days we'd landed a job at divinaries and i'd learned to shimmy from a kid at the palais royale we stayed at divinaries six months until one night peter boyce wendell the columnist ate his milk toast there next morning a poem about marvellus marcia came out in his newspaper and within two days i had three vaudeville offers and a chance the midnight frolic i wrote wendell a thank you letter and he printed it in his column said that the style was like carlyle's only more rugged and that i ought to quit dancing and do north american literature that got me a couple more vaudeville offers and a chance is an ingenue in a regular show i took it and here i am omar

when she finished they sat for a moment in silence she draping the last skeins of a welsh rabbit on her fork and waiting for him to speak let's get out of here he said suddenly marcia's eyes hardened what's the idea am i making you sick no but i don't like it here i don't like to be sitting here with you without another word marcia signalled for the waiter what's the check she demanded briskly my part the rabbit and the jiggerail horace watched blankly as the waiter figured it see here he began i intend to pay for yours too you're my guest with a half sigh marcia rose from the table and walked from the room horace his face a document and ballooned "'Lay a bill down and followed her out, up the stairs and into the lobby. "'He overtook her in front of the elevator, and they faced each other. "'See here,' he repeated. "'You're my guest. "'Have I said something to offend you?'

"'After an instant of wonder, Marcia's eyes softened. "'You're a rude fellow,' she said slowly. "'Don't you know you're rude?' "'I can't help it,' said Horace, with a directness she found quite disarming. "'You know I like you.' "'You said you'd say you. didn't like being with me. I didn't like it. Why not? Fire blazed suddenly from the gray forests of his eyes. Because I didn't. I formed the habit of liking you. I've been thinking of nothing

much else for two days. Well, if you... Wait a minute, he interrupted. I've got something to say. It's this. In six weeks, I'll be 18 years old. When I'm 18 years old, I'm coming up to New York to see you. Is there some place in New York we can go and not have a lot of people in the room?" "'Sure,' smiled Marcia. "'You can come up to my apartment. Sleep on the couch if you want to.' "'I can't sleep on couches,' he said shortly. "'But I want to talk to you.'

"'Why, sure,' repeated Marcia. "'In my apartment.' In his excitement, Horace put his hands in his pockets. "'All right, just so I can see you alone. I just want to talk to you as we talked in my room.' "'Honey boy.' cried marcia laughing is it that you want to kiss me yes horace almost shouted i'll kiss you if you want me to the elevator man was looking at them reproachfully marcia edged toward the grated door i'll drop you a postcard she said horace's eyes were quite wild send me a postcard i'll come up any time after january first i'll be eighteen then and as she stepped into the elevator he coughed enigmatically yet with a

vague challenge at the ceiling, and walked quickly away. Three. He was there again. She saw him when she took her first glance at the restless Manhattan audience, down in the front row with his head bent a bit forward and his grey eyes fixed on her. And she knew that they were alone together in a world where the high-rooged row of ballet faces and the masked wines of the violins were as imperceivable as powder on a marble venus. An instinctive defiance rose within her.

Silly boy, she said to herself hurriedly, and she didn't take her encore. What do they expect for a hundred a week? Perpetual motion? She grumbled to herself in the wings. What's the trouble, Marcia? Guy don't like down in front. During the last act as she waited for her specialty, she had an odd attack of stage fright. She had never sent Horace the promised first.

postcard. Last night she had pretended not to see him, had hurried from the theatre immediately after her dance to pass a sleepless night in her apartment, thinking, as she had so often in the last month, of his pale, rather intent face, his slim, boyish figure, the merciless, unworldly abstraction that made him charming to her. And now that he had come she felt vaguely sorry, as though an unwonted responsibility was being forced on her. "'Infin prodigy,' she said aloud. "'What?' demanded the negro comedian standing beside her. "'Nothing, just talking to myself.

"'On the stage she felt better. "'This was her dance, and she always felt that the way she did it wasn't suggestive, "'any more than to some men every pretty girl is suggestive. "'She made it a stunt. "'Uptown, downtown jelly on a spoon. after sundown shiver by the moon. He was not watching her now. She saw that clearly.

He was looking very deliberately at a castle on the backdrop, wearing that expression he had worn in the Taft grill. A wave of exasperation swept over her. He was criticizing her. That's the vibration that thrills me. Funny how affection fills me. Uptown, downtown. Unconquerable.

revulsion seized her. She was suddenly and horribly conscious of her audience as she had never been since her first appearance. Was that a leer on a pallid face in the front row? A droop of disgust on one young girl's mouth? These shoulders of hers. These shoulders shaking. Were they hers? Were they real? Surely shoulders weren't made for this. Then you'll see at a glance. I'll need some funeral ushers with St. Vydest dance. At the end of the whirl-o'-o'-the-bous. The bassoon and two cellos crashed into a final chord. She paused and poised a moment on her toes with every muscle tense, her young face looking out dully at the audience in one young girl afterward called, Such a curious, puzzled look.

And then, without bowing, rushed from the stage, into the dressing-room she sped, kicked out of one dress and into another, and caught a taxi outside. Her apartment was very warm, small it was, with a row of professional pictures and sets of Kipling and O'Henry which she had bought once from a blue-eyed agent and red occasionally. And there were several chairs which matched, but none of them were comfortable, and a pink-shaded lamp with blackbirds painted on it, and an atmosphere of rather stifled pink throughout. There were nice things in it, nice things unrelentingly hostile to each other, offspring of a vicariousness. curious, impatient taste acting in stray moments. The worst was typified by a great picture framed in oak bark of Passaic as seen from Erie Railroad, altogether a frantic, oddly extravagant, oddly panurious attempt to make a cheerful

room. Marcia knew it was a failure. Into this room came the prodigy and took her two hands awkwardly. "'I followed you this time,' he said. "'Oh!' "'I want you to marry me.' he said. Her arms went out to him. She kissed his mouth with a sort of passionate wholesomeness.

There. I love you, he said. She kissed him again, and then with a little sigh flung herself into an armchair and half lay there, shaken with absurd laughter. Why, you infant prodigy, she cried. Very well, call me that if you want to. I once told you I was ten thousand years older than you. I am. She laughed again. I don't like to be disapproved of. No one's ever going to disapprove of you again.

Omar, she asked, why do you want to marry me? The prodigy rose and put his hands in his pockets. Because I love you, Marsha Mehta. And then she stopped calling him Omar. Dear boy, she said, you know I sort of love you. There's something about you. I can't tell what, that just puts my heart through the ringer every time I'm round you. But, honey, she paused.

But what? But lots of things, but you're only just eighteen, and I'm nearly twenty. Nonsense, he interrupted. Put it this way, that I'm in my nineteenth year and you're nineteen. That makes us pretty close, without counting that other ten thousand years I mentioned. Marcia laughed. But there are some more buts. Your people.

My people, exclaimed the prodigy ferociously. My people tried to make a monstrosity out of me. His face grew quite crimson at the enormity of what he was going to say. My people can go way back and sit down. My heavens, cried Marcia in alarm. All that? On tax, I suppose. Tax, yes!

he agreed wildly, on anything. The more I think of how they allowed me to become a little dried-up mummy. What makes you think you're that? asked Marcia quietly. Me? Yes. Every person I've met on the streets since I met you has made me jealous because they knew what love was before I did. I used to call it the sex impulse. Heavens!

There's more buts, said Marcia. What are they? How could we live? I'll make a living. You're in college. Do you think I care anything about taking a master of arts degree? You want to be master of me, hey? Yes, what?

I mean, no. Marsha laughed, and crossing swiftly over, sat in his lap. He put his arm round her wildly and implanted the vestige of a kiss somewhere near her neck. There's something white about you. you, mused Marcia. But it doesn't sound very logical. Oh, don't be so darned reasonable. I can't help it, said Marcia. I hate these slot machine people.

But we—oh, shut up! And as Marcia couldn't talk through her ears, she had to. Four. Horace and Marcia were married early in February. The sensation in academic circles both at Yale and Princeton was tremendous. Horace Tarbox, who at 14 had been played up in the Sunday magazine sections of metropolitan newspapers, was throwing over his career his chance of being a world authority on American philosophy by marrying a chorus girl. They made Marcia a chorus girl. But like all modern stories, it was a four and a half day wonder.

They took a flat in Harlem. After two weeks' search, during which his idea of the value of academic knowledge faded unmercifully, Horace took a position as a clerk with a South American export company. Someone had told him that exporting was the coming thing. Marsha was to stay in her show for a few months, anyway until he got on his feet. He was getting a hundred and twenty-five to start with, and though of course they told him it was only a question of months until he would be earning double that, Marsha refused even to consider giving up the hundred and fifty a week that she was getting at the time. We'll call ourselves head and shoulders. dear, she said softly, and the shoulders will have to keep shaking a little longer until the old

head gets started. I hate it, he objected gloomily. Well, she replied emphatically, your salary wouldn't keep us in a tenement. Don't think I want to be public. I don't. I want to be yours. But I'd be a half-wit to sit in one room and count the sunflowers on the wallpaper while I waited for you. When you pull down three hundred a month, I'll quit. and much as it hurt his pride horace had to admit that hers was the wiser course march mellowed into april may read a gorgeous riot act to the parks and waters of manhattan and they were very happy horace who had no habits whatsoever he had never had time to form any proved the most adaptable of husbands and as marcia entirely lacked opinions on the subjects that engrossed him there were very few jottings and bumpings

their minds moved in different spheres marcia acted as practical factotum and horace lived either in his old world of abstract ideas or in a sort of triumphantly earthy worship and adoration of his wife she was a continual source of astonishment to him the freshness and originality of her mind her dynamic clear-headed energy and her unfailing good-humour and marcia's co-workers in the nine o'clock show whither she had transferred her talents were impressed with her tremendous pride in her husband's mental powers horace they knew only as a very slim tight-lipped and immature-looking young man who waited every night to take her home horace said marcia one evening when she met him as usual at eleven you looked like a ghost standing there against the street lights you losing weight he shook his head vaguely i don't know They raised me to $135 today, and I don't care, said Marcia severely. You're killing yourself working at night. You read those big books on economy. Economics, corrected Horace.

Well, you read them every night long after I'm asleep, and you're getting all stooped over like you were before we were married. But Marcia, I've got to— No, you haven't, dear. I guess I'm running this shop for the present, and I won't let my fellow ruin his health and eyes. You got to get some exercise. I do.

Every morning I— Oh, I know. But those dumbbells of yours wouldn't give a consumptive two degrees of fever. I mean real exercise. You've got to join a gymnasium. Remember you told me you were such a trick gymnast once that they tried to get you out for the team in college, and they couldn't because you had a standing date with Herb Spencer? I used to enjoy it, mused Horace, but it would take up too much time now.

All right, said Marcia. a bargain with you. You join a gym, and I'll read one of those books from the brown row of them. Peep's diary? Why, that ought to be enjoyable. He's very light. Not for me, he isn't. It'll be like digesting plate glass. But you've been telling me how much it'll broaden my outlook. Well, you go to a gym three nights a week, and I'll take one big dose of Sammy. Horace hesitated. Well, come on now. You do some giant swings for me. and I'll chase some culture for you.

So Horace finally consented, and all through a baking summer, he spent three and sometimes four evenings a week experimenting on the trapeze in Skipper's Gymnasium. And in August he admitted to Marcia that it made him capable of more mental work during the day. Menzana Incorporasano, he said. Don't believe it, replied Marcia.

I tried one of those patent medicines once, and they're all bunk. You stick to gymnastics. One night in early September, while he was going through one of his contortions on the rings in the nearly deserted room, he was addressed by a meditative fat man, whom he had noticed watching him for several nights. Say, lad, do that stunt you were doing last night. Horace grinned at him from his perch.

I invented it, he said. I got the idea from the fourth proposition of Euclin. What circus is he with? He's dead. Well, he must have broke his neck doing that stunt. I said here last night thinking, sure he was going to break yours. Like this, said Horace, and swinging on to the trapeze, he did his stunt. Don't it kill your neck and shoulder muscles?

It did at first, but inside of a week I wrote the Quadarist Demonstrandum on it. Hmm, Horace swung idly on the trapeze. "'Ever think of taking it up professionally?' asked the fat man. "'Not I. "'Good money in it if you're willing to do stunts like that and can get away with it.' "'Here's another!' chirped Horace eagerly, and the fat man's mouth dropped suddenly a gape as he watched this pink-jurzied Prometheus again defy the gods and Isaac Newton.

The night following this encounter, Horace got home from work to find a rather pale Marsha stretched out on the sofa waiting for him. I fainted twice today, she began without preliminaries. What? Yep. You see, babies do in four months now. Doctor says I ought to have quit dancing two weeks ago. Horace sat down and thought it over. I'm glad, of course, he said pensively.

I mean, glad that we're going to have a baby, but this means a lot of expense. I've got two hundred and fifty in the bank, said no. Marcia, hopefully, and two weeks' pay coming.' Horace computed quickly. "'Including my salary, that'll give us nearly fourteen hundred for the next six months.' Marcia looked blue. "'That all? Of course I can get a job singing somewhere this month, and I can go to work again in March.' "'Of course nothing,' said Horace gruffly.

"'You'll stay right here.' "'Let's see now. There'll be doctor's bills and a nurse besides the maid. We've got to have some more money. Well, said Marsha Wearily, I don't know where it's coming from. It's up to the old head now. Shoulders is out of business. Horace rose and pulled on his coat.

Where are you going? I've got an idea, he answered. I'll be right back. Ten minutes later, as he headed down the street towards Skipper's gymnasium, he felt a placid wonder, quite unmixed with humor, at what he was going to do. How he would have gaped at himself a year before. How everyone would have gaped!

But when you opened your door at the wrap of life, you let in many things. The gymnasium was brightly lit, and when his eyes became accustomed to the glare, he found the meditative fat man seated on a pile of canvas mats, smoking a big cigar. Say, began Horace directly, were you in earnest last night when you said I could make money on my trapeze stunts? "'Why, yes,' said the fat man in surprise. "'Well, I've been thinking it over, and I believe I'd like to try it. "'I could work at night and on Saturday afternoons,

"'and regularly if the pay is high enough.' "'The fat man looked at his watch. "'Well,' he said, Charlie Poulson's the man to see. "'He'll book you inside of four days once he sees you work out. "'You won't be in now, but I'll get a hold of him for tomorrow night.' the fat man was as good as his word charlie paulson arrived next night and put in a wondrous hour watching the prodigy swoop through the air in amazing parabolas and on the night following he brought two large men with him who looked as though they had been born smoking black cigars and talking about money in low passionate voices Then, on the succeeding Saturday, Horace Tarbox's torso made its first professional appearance in a gymnastic exhibition at the Coleman Street Gardens.

But though the audience numbered nearly 5,000 people, Horace felt no nervousness. From his childhood he had read papers to audiences, learned that trick of detaching himself. "'Marsha,' he said cheerfully later that night, "'I think we're out of the woods. Paulson thinks he can get me an opening at the hippodrome, and that means an all winter engagement. The hippodrome, you know, is a big... Yes, I believe I've heard of it, interrupted Marcia.

But I want to know about this stunt you're doing. It isn't any spectacular suicide, is it? It's nothing, said Horace quietly, but if you could think of any nicer way of a man killing himself than taking a risk for you, why, that's the way I want to die. Marcia reached up and wound both arms tightly around his neck. Kiss me, she whispered.

and call me dear heart. I love to hear you say, dear heart. And bring me a book to read tomorrow. No more Sam peeps, but something trick and trashy. I've been wild for something to do all day. I felt like writing letters, but I didn't have anybody to write to. Write to me, said Horace, I'll read them. I wish I could, breathed Marcia. If I knew words enough, I could write you the longest love letter in the world, and never get tired. But after two more months, Marcia grew very tired, indeed. and for a row of nights it was a very anxious, weary-looking young athlete who walked out before the hippodrome crowd. Then there were two days when his place was taken by a young man who wore pale blue instead of white, and got very little applause.

But after the two days Horace appeared again, and those who sat close to the stage remarked an expression of beatific happiness on that young acrobat's face, even when he was twisting breathlessly in the air in the middle of his amazing and original shoulder swing. After that performance, he laughed at the elevator man and dashed up the stairs to the flat five steps at a time, and then tiptoed very carefully into the quiet room. "'Marsha!' he whispered. "'Hallo!' she smiled up at him warmly. "'Horris, there's something I want you to do. Look in my top bureau drawer and you'll find a big stack of paper.

"'It's a book, sort of. Horace. I wrote it down in these last three months while I've been laid up. I wish you'd take it to that Peter Boyce Wendell who put my letter in his paper. He could tell you whether it'd be a good book. I wrote it just the way I talk, just the way I wrote that letter to him. It's just a story about a lot of things that happened to me. Will you take it to him, Horace? Yes, darling.

He leaned over on the bed until his head was beside her on the pillow and began stroking back her yellow hair. "'Dearest Marsha,' he said softly. "'No,' she murmured. "'Call me what I told you to call me.' "'Dear heart,' he whispered passionately. "'Dearest, dearest heart.' "'What do we call her?'

They rested a minute in happy, drowsy content, while Horace considered. "'We'll call her Marcia Hume Tarbox,' he said at length. "'Why the Hume? "'Because he's the fellow who first introduced us.' "'That's so,' she murmured, sleepily surprised. "'I thought his name was Moon.' Her eyes closed, and after a moment the slow, lengthening surge of the bedclothes over her breast

showed that she was asleep. Horace tiptoed to the bureau, and, opening the top drawer, found a heap of closely scrawled, lead- smeared pages. He looked at the first sheet. "'Sandra Peeps, syncopated, by Marsha Tarbox.' He smiled. "'So Samuel Peep's had made an impression on her after all. He turned a page and began to read.

His smile deepened. He read on. Half an hour passed, and he became aware that Marcia had waked and was watching him from the bed. "'Honey?' came in a whisper. "'What, Marsha?' "'Do you like it?' horace coughed i seem to be reading on it's bright take it to peter boyce wendell tell him you got the highest marks in princeton once and that you ought to know when a book's good tell him this one's a world-beater all right marcia said horace gently her eyes closed again and horace crossing over kissed her forehead stood there for a moment with a look of tender pity then he left the room all that night

the scrawly writing on the pages, the constant mistakes in spelling and grammar, and the weird punctuation danced before his eyes. He woke several times in the night, each time full of a welling, chaotic sympathy for this desire of Marsha's soul to express itself in words. To him there was something infinitely pathetic about it, and for the first time in months he began to turn over in his mind his own half-forgotten dreams. He had meant to write a series of books, to popularize the world. the new realism as Schopenhauer had popularized pessimism and William James pragmatism. But life hadn't come that way. Life took hold of people and forced them into flying rings. He laughed to think of that rap at his door, the diaphanous shadow in Hume, Marcia's threatened

kiss. And it's still me, he said aloud in wonder as he lay awake in the darkness. I'm the man who sat in Berkeley with temerity to wonder if that rap would have had actual existence, had my ear not been there to hear it. I'm still that man. I could be electrocuted for the crimes he committed. Poor gauzy souls trying to express ourselves in something tangible. Marcia with her written book, I with my unwritten ones, trying to choose our mediums and then taking what we get, and being glad. Five. Sandra Peep's, syncopated, with an introduction by Peter Boyce Wendell, the columnist,

appeared serially in Jordan's magazine, and came out in book form in March. From its first published installment it attracted attention far and wide. A trite enough subject, a girl from a small New Jersey town coming to New York to go on the stage, treated simply with a peculiar vividness of phrasing and a haunting undertone of sadness in the very inadequacy of its vocabulary. It made an irresistible appeal. Peter Boyce Wendell, who happened at that time to be advocating the enrichment of the American language by the immediate adoption of expressive vernacular words, stood as its sponsor and thundered his endorsement over the placid bromides of the conventional reviewers.

Marcia received $300 an installment for the serial publication, which came at an opportune time, for though Horace's monthly salary at the hippodrome was now more than Marsha's had ever been, young Marsha was emitting shrill cries which they interpreted as a demand for country air. So early April found them installed in a bungalow in Westchester County, with a place for a lawn, a place for a garage, and a place for everything, including a sound-proof impregnable study, in which Marcia faithfully promised Mr. Jordan she would shut herself up when her daughter's demands began to be abated, and compose immortally illiterate literature.

It's not half bad, thought Horace one night as he was on his way from the station to his house. He was considering several odd prospects that had opened up, a four-months vaudeville offer in five figures, a chance to go back to Princeton in charge of all gymnasium work. Odd, he had once intended to go back there in charge of all philosophic work, and now he had not even been stirred by the arrival in New York of, Anton Laurier, his old idol. The gravel crunched raucously under his heel. He saw the lights of his sitting-room gleaming and noticed a big car standing in the drive. Probably Mr. Jordan again,

come to persuade Marcia to settle down to work. She had heard the sound of his approach, and her form was silhouetted against the lighted door as she came out to meet him. "'There's some Frenchman here,' she whispered nervously. I can't pronounce his name, but he sounds awful deep. You ought to jaw with him. What Frenchman? He can't prove it by me. He drove up an hour ago with Mr. Jordan,

and said he wanted to meet Sandra Peep's and all that sort of thing. Two men rose from chairs as they went inside. Hello, Tarbox, said Jordan. I've just been bringing together two celebrities. I've brought Monsieur Laurier out with me. Mr. Lourier, let me present Mr. Tarbox, Mrs. Tarbox's husband. Not on Torn Laurier, exclaimed Horace.

But yes, I must come. I have to come. I have read the book of Madame and I've been charmed. He fumbled in his pocket. Ah, I have read of you, too. In this newspaper which I read today it has your name. He finally produced a clipping from a magazine. Read it, he said eagerly. It has about you, too. Horace's eyes skipped down the page. A distinct contribution to American dialect literature, it said. No attempt at literary tone.

The book derives its very quality from this fact, as did Huckleberry Finn. Horace's eyes caught a passage lower down. He became suddenly aghast, read on hurriedly. Marcia Tarbox's connection with the stage is not only as a spectator, but as the wife of a performer. She was married last year to Horace Tarbox, who every evening delights the children at the hippodrome, with his wondrous flying ring performance.

It is said that the young couple have dubbed themselves head and shoulders, referring doubtless to the fact that Mrs. Tarbox supplies the literary and mental qualities, while the supple and agile shoulders of her husband contribute their share to the family fortunes. Mrs. Tarbox seems to merit that much-abused title, prodigy. Only twenty. Horace stopped reading, and with a very odd expression

in his eyes, gazed intently at Anton Laurier. I want to advise you, he began hoarsely. What? About raps, don't answer them. Let them alone, have a padded door. End of Section 3. Section 4 of Flappers and Flippers and Philosophers by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This Librevox recording is in the public domain, recording by M.B. The Cut Glass Bowl. One. There was a rough stone age, and a smooth stone age,

and a bronze age, and many years afterward a cut glass age. In the cut glass age, when young ladies had persuaded young men with long, curly mustaches to marry them, they sat down several months afterward and wrote thank you notes for all sorts of cut glass presents. Punch bowls, finger bowls, dinner glasses, wine glasses, ice cream dishes, bonbon dishes, decanters, and vases. For, though cut glass was nothing new in the 90s, it was then especially busy reflecting the dazzling light of fashion from the back bay to the fastnesses of the Middle West. After the wedding, the punch bowls were arranged in the sideboard with the big bowl in the center. The glasses were set up in the china closet. The candlesticks were put at both ends of things, and then the struggle for existence

began. The bonbon dish lost its little handle and became a pin tray upstairs. A promenading cat knocked the little bowl off the sideboard, and the hired girl chipped the middle-sized one with the sugar dish. And even the dinner-glasses disappeared one by one like the ten little niggers. The last one ending up, scarred and maimed as a toothbrush holder among other shabby genteels on the bathroom shelf. But by the time all this had happened, the cut-glass age was over anyway. It was well past its first glory on the day the curious Mrs. Roger Fairbold came to see the beautiful Mrs. Harold Piper. "'My dear,' said the curious Mrs. Roger Fairbold,

"'I love your house. I think it's quite artistic.' "'I'm so glad,' said. said the beautiful Mrs. Harold Piper, lights appearing in her young, dark eyes, and you must come often. I'm almost always alone in the afternoon. Mrs. Fairbolt would have liked to remark that she didn't believe this at all, and couldn't see how she'd be expected to. It was all over town that Mr. Freddie Gedney had been dropping in on Mrs. Piper five afternoons a week for the past six months. Mrs. Fairbolt was at that ripe age where she distrusted all beautiful women.

I love the dining room most, she said. Oh, that marvelous china and that huge cut-glass bowl. Mrs. Piper laughed, so prettily that Mrs. Fairbolt's lingering reservations about the Freddie Gedney story quite vanished. Oh, that big bowl! Mrs. Piper's mouth forming the words was a vivid rose petal. There's a story about that bowl. Oh, you remember young Carlton Canaan.

Well, he was very attentive at one time, and the night I told him I was going to marry Harold, seven years ago in 92, he drew himself way up and said, Evelyn, I'm going to give you a present that's as hard as you are and as beautiful and as empty and as easy to see through. He frightened me a little. His eyes were so black, I thought he was going to deed me a haunted house or something that would explode when you opened it. That bull came, and of course it's beautiful.

It's diameter or circumference or something is two and a half feet, or perhaps it's three and a half. Anyway, the sideboard is really too small for it. It sticks way out. My dear, wasn't that odd? And he left town about then, didn't he? Mrs. Fairbolt was scribbling italicized notes on her memory. Hard, beautiful, empty, and easy to see through. Yes, he went west or south, or south, or south. somewhere, answered Mrs. Piper, radiating that divine vagueness that helps to lift beauty out of time. Mrs. Ferbilt drew on her gloves, approving the effect of largeness given by the open sweep from

the spacious music room through the library, disclosing a part of the dining room beyond. It was really the nicest smaller house in town, and Mrs. Piper had talked of moving to a larger one on Devereaux Avenue. Harold Piper must be coining money. As she turned to her in a little, she turned into the sidewalk under the gathering autumn dusk. She assumed that disapproving, faintly unpleasant expression that almost all successful women of forty wear on the street. If I were Harold Piper, she thought, I'd spend a little less time on business and a little more time at home. Some friend should speak to him. But if Mrs. Fairbolt had considered it a successful afternoon, she would have named it a triumph had she waited two minutes longer.

for while she was still a black receding figure a hundred yards down the street a very good-looking distraught young man turned up the walk to the piper house mrs piper answered the door-bell herself and with a rather dismayed expression led him quickly into the library i had to see you he began wildly your note played the devil with me did herald frighten you into this she shook her head i'm through fred she said slowly and her lips had never looked to him so much like tearings from a rose he came home last night sick with it jessie piper's sense of duty was too much for her so she went down to his office and told him He was hurt and—oh, I can't help seeing it this way, Fred. He says we've been club gossip all summer and he didn't know it, and now he understands snatches of conversation he's caught and veiled hints people have dropped about me. He's mighty angry, Fred, and he loves me and I love him, rather.

Gedney nodded slowly and half-closed his eyes. Yes, he said. Yes, my trouble's like yours. I can see other people's points of view, too. plainly. His gray eyes met her dark ones, frankly. The blessed thing's over. My God, Evelyn, I've been sitting down at the office all day looking at the outside of your letter and looking at it and looking at it. You've got to go, Fred, she said steadily, and the slight emphasis of hurry in her voice was a new thrust for him. I gave him my word of

honor I wouldn't see you. I know just how far I can go with Harold, and being here with you this evening is one of the things I can't do. They were still standing, and as she spoke, she made a little movement toward the door. Gedney looked at her miserably, trying, here at the end, to treasure up a last picture of her. And then, suddenly both of them were stiffened into marble at the sound of steps on the walk outside. Instantly her arm reached out, grasping the lapel of his coat, half urged, half swung him through the big door into the dark dining room. i'll make him go upstairs she whispered close to his ear don't move till you hear him on the stairs then go out the front way then he was alone listening as she greeted her husband in the hall harold piper was thirty-six nine years older than his wife he was handsome with marginal notes these being eyes that were too close together and a certain woodenness when his face was in repose

his attitude toward this getney matter was typical of all his attitudes he had told evelyn that he considered the subject closed and would never reproach her nor allude to it in any form and he told himself that this was rather a big way of looking at it that she was not a little impressed yet like all men who are preoccupied with their own broadness he was exceptionally narrow he greeted evelyn with emphasized cordiality this evening "'You'll have to hurry and dress, Harold,' she said eagerly. "'We're going to the Bronsons.' He nodded. "'It doesn't take me long to dress, dear.' And his words trailing off he walked on into the library. Evelyn's heart clattered loudly.

"'Herald!' she began with a little catch in her voice and followed him in. He was lighting a cigarette. "'You'll have to hurry, Harold,' she finished, standing in the doorway. why he asked the trifle impatiently you're not dressed yourself yet evie he stretched out in a morris chair and unfolded a newspaper with a sinking sensation evelyn saw that this meant at least ten minutes and gedney was standing breathless in the next room supposing harold decided that before he went upstairs he wanted a drink from the decanter on the sideboard then it occurred to her to forestall this contingency by bringing him the decanter and a glass she'd drink from the decanter and a glass she'd drink from the decanter on the sideboard then it occurred to her to forestall this contingency by bringing him the decanter and a glass she'd drink She dreaded calling his attention to the dining-room in any way, but she couldn't risk the other chance. But at the same moment, Harold rose and, throwing his paper down, came toward her. "'Evy, dear,' he said, bending and putting his arms about her.

"'I hope you're not thinking about last night.' She moved close to him, trembling. "'I know,' he continued, "'it was just an imprudent friendship on your part. We all make mistakes.' Evelyn hardly heard him. she was wondering if by sheer clinging to him she could draw him out and up the stairs she thought of playing sick asking to be carried up unfortunately she knew he would lay her on the couch and bring her whisky suddenly her nervous tension moved up a last impossible notch she had heard a very faint but quite unmistakable creak from the floor of the dining-room fred was trying to get out the back way then her heart took a flying leap as a hollow ringing note like a gong echoed and re-echoed through the house gedney's arm had struck the big cut-glass bowl what's that cried harold who's there

she clung to him but he broke away and the room seemed to crash about her ears she heard the pantry door swing open a scuffle the rattle of a tin pan and in wild despair she rushed into the kitchen and pulled up the gas her husband's arm slowly unwound from gedney's neck and he stood there very still first in amazement then with pain dawning in his face my golly he said in bewilderment and then repeated my golly he turned as if to jump again at gedney stopped his muscles visibly relaxed and he gave a bitter little laugh you people you people evelyn's arms were around him and her eyes were pleading with him frantically but he pushed her away and sank dazed into a kitchen chair his face like porcelain you've been doing things to me evelyn why you little devil you little devil she had never felt so sorry for him she had never loved him so much it wasn't her fault said gedney rather humbly i just came But Piper shook his head, and his expression when he started up was as if some physical accident had jarred his mind into a temporary inability to function. His eyes, grown suddenly pitiful, struck a deep, unsounded cord in Evelyn, and simultaneously a furious anger surged in her. She felt her eyelids burning. She stamped her foot violently, her hands scurried nervously over the table as if

searching for a weapon and then she flung herself wildly at gedney get out she screamed dark eyes blazing little fists beating helplessly on his outstretched arm you did this get out of here get out get out get out two concerning mrs harold piper at thirty five opinion was divided women said she was still handsome men said she was pretty no longer and this was probably because the qualities in her beauty that women had feared and men had followed had vanished her eyes were still as large and as dark and as sad but the mystery had departed their sadness was no longer eternal only human and she had developed a habit when she was startled or annoyed of twitching her brows together and blinking several times her mouth also had lost the red head receded and the faint downturning of its corners when she smiled that had added to the sadness of the eyes and been vaguely mocking and beautiful was quite gone when she smiled now the corners of her lips turned up back in the days when she had revelled in her own beauty evelyn had enjoyed that smile of hers she had accentuated it when she stopped accentuating it it faded out and the last of her mystery with it evelyn had ceased accentuating her smile within a month after the freddy gedney affair eventually things had gone on very much as they had before but in those few minutes during which she had discovered how much she loved her husband evelyn had realized how indelibly she had hurt him For a month she struggled against aching silences, wild reproaches and accusations.

She pled with him, made quiet, pitiful little love to him, and he laughed at her bitterly. And then she, too, slipped gradually into silence, and a shadowy, impenetrable barrier dropped between them. The surge of love that had risen in her, she lavished on Donald, her little boy, realizing him almost wonderingly, as a part of her life. The next year, a piling up of mutual interests and responsibilities, and some stray flicker from the past, brought husband and wife together again. But after a rather pathetic flood of passion, Evelyn realized that her great opportunity was gone. There simply wasn't anything left. She might have been youth and love for both, but that time

of silence had slowly dried up the springs of affection. and her own desire to drink again of them was dead. She began for the first time to seek women friends, to prefer books she had read before, to sew a little where she could watch her two children to whom she was devoted. She worried about little things. If she saw crumbs on the dinner table, her mind drifted off the conversation.

She was receding gradually into middle age. Her 35th birthday had been an exceptionally busy one, for they were entertaining on short notice that night, and as she stood in her bedroom window in the late afternoon, she discovered that she was quite tired. Ten years before she would have lain down and slept, but now she had a feeling that things needed watching. Maids were cleaning downstairs,

Brick of Brack was all over the floor, and there was sure to be a grocery man that had to be talked to imperatively. And then there was a letter to write Donald, who was fourteen and in his first year away at school. She had nearly decided to lie down nevertheless, when she heard a sudden familiar signal from little Julie downstairs. She compressed her lips, her brows twitched together, and she blinked. "'Julie!' she called.

"'Oh!' prolonged Julie plaintively. Then the voice of Hilda, the second maid, floated up the stairs. She caught herself a little, Miss Piper. Evelyn flew to her sewing basket, rummaged until she found a torn handkerchief, and hurried downstairs. In a moment, Julie was crying in her arms

as she searched for the cut, faint, disparaging evidence of which appeared on Julie's dress. My thumb! explained Julie. Oh, turts! It was the bull here, "'The he one,' said Hilda apologetically. "'It was waiting on the floor while I polished the sideboard,

"'and Julie come along and went to fooling with it. "'She just scratched herself.' "'Evelin frowned heavily at Hilda, "'and twisting Julie decisively in her lap, "'began tearing strips off the handkerchief. "'Now, let's see it, dear.' "'Julie held it up, and Evelyn pounced. "'There!' Julie surveyed her swathed her swathed,

thumb doubtfully. She crooked it. It waggled. A pleased, interested look appeared in her tear-stained face. She sniffed and waggled it again. You precious, cried Evelyn and kissed her. But before she left the room, she levelled another frown at Hilda. Careless.

Servants all that way nowadays. If she could get a good Irish woman, but you couldn't anymore. And these Swedes! at five o'clock harold arrived and coming up to her room threatened in a suspiciously jovial tone to kiss her thirty-five times for her birthday evelyn resisted you've been drinking she said shortly and then added qualitatively a little you know i loathe the smell of it evey he said after a pause seating himself in a chair by the window i can tell you something now i guess you've known things haven't been going quite right downtown. She was standing at the window calming her hair, but at these words she turned and looked at him. "'How do you mean? You've always said there was room for more than one wholesale hardware house in town?' Her voice expressed some alarm.

"'There was,' said Harold significantly, but this Clarence Ahern is a smart man. I was surprised when you said he was coming to dinner. Evey, he went on with a another slap at his knee. After January 1st, the Clarence Ahern Company becomes the Ahern Piper Company, and Piper Brothers as a company ceases to exist. Evlin was startled. The sound of his name in second place was somehow hostile to her. Still, he appeared jubilant. I don't understand, Harold. Well, Evey, Ahern has been fooling around with marks. If those two had combined, we'd have been the little fellow, struggling along, picking up the smaller orders, hanging back on risks. It's a question of capital, Evie, and Ahern and Marx would have had the business just like

Ahern and Piper is going to now.' He paused and coughed, and a little cloud of whiskey floated up to her nostrils. "'Tell you the truth, Evie, I've suspected that Ahern's wife had something to do with it. Ambitious little lady, I'm told. I guess she knew the Marx's couldn't help her much here. Is she common? asked Evie. Never met her, I'm sure. But I don't doubt it.

Clarence O'Hern's name's been up at the country club five months. No action taken. He waved his hand disparagingly. O'Hern and I had lunch together today and just about clinched it, so I thought it'd be nice to have him and his wife up tonight. Just have nine, mostly family. After all, it's a big thing for me. and of course we'll have to see something of them, Evie.

Yes, said Evie thoughtfully. I suppose we will. Evelyn was not disturbed over the social end of it, but the idea of Piper brothers becoming the Ahern Piper Company startled her. It seemed like going down in the world. Half an hour later, as she began to dress for dinner, she heard his voice from downstairs. Oh, Evie, come down!

She went out into the hall and, and called over the banister. What is it? I want you to help me make some of that punch before dinner. Hurryedly re-hooking her dress, she descended the stairs and found him grouping the essentials on the dining-room table. She went over to the sideboard, and, lifting one of the bowls, carried it over. Oh, no, he protested.

Let's use the big one. There'll be a herne and his wife and you and I and Milton, that's five, and Tom and Jesse, that's seven. and your sister and Joe Ambler, that's nine. You don't know how quick that stuff goes when you make it. We use this bowl, she insisted. It'll hold plenty. You know how Tom is. Tom Lowry, husband to Jesse, Harold's first cousin,

was rather inclined to finish anything in a liquid way that he began. Harold shook his head. Don't be foolish. That one holds only about three quarts and there's nine of us, and the servants will want some. And it isn't strong, punch. It's so much more cheerful to have a lot, Evie. We don't have to drink all of it. I say the small one. Again, he shook his head obstinately.

No, be reasonable. I am reasonable, she said shortly. I don't want any drunken men in the house. Who said you did? Then use the small bowl. Now, Evie, he grasped the smaller bowl to lift it back. instantly her hands were on at holding it down there was a momentary struggle and then with a little exasperated grunt he raised his side slipped it from her fingers and carried it to the sideboard she looked at him and tried to make her expression contemptuous but he only laughed acknowledging her defeat but disclaiming all future interest in the punch she left the room three At 7.30, her cheeks glowing and her high-piled hair gleaming with the suspicion of brillianty, Evelyn descended the stairs. Mrs. Ahern, a little woman, concealing a slight nervousness under her red hair and an extreme empire gown, greeted her volubly. Evelyn disliked her on the spot, but the husband she rather approved of. He had keen blue eyes, and a natural gift of pleasing people that might have made him, social.

had he not so obviously committed the blunder of marrying too early in his career. I'm glad to know Piper's wife, he said simply. It looks as though your husband and I are going to see a lot of each other in the future. She bowed, smiled graciously, and turned to greet the others. Milton Piper, Harold's quiet, unassertive younger brother, the two Lowry's, Jessie and Tom, Irene, her own unmarried sister, and finally Joe Ambler, a confirmed bachelor and Irene's perennial beau.

Harold led the way into dinner. We're having a punch evening, he announced jovially. Evelyn saw that he had already sampled his concoction. So there won't be any cocktails except the punch. It's my wife's greatest achievement, Mrs. Ahern. She'll give you the recipe if you want it. But owing to a slight, he caught his wife's eye and paused, to a slight indisposition I'm responsible for this batch.

Here's how. All through dinner there was punch, and Evelyn, noticing that Ahern and Milton Piper and all the women were shaking their heads negatively at the maid, knew she had been right about the bowl. It was still half full. She resolved to caution Harold directly afterward, but when the women left the table,

Mrs. Ahern cornered her, and she found herself talking cities and dressmakers with a polite show of interest. We've moved around a lot, chattered Mrs. Ahern, her red head, nodding violently. Oh, yes, we've never stayed so long in the town before. But I do hope we're here for good.

I like it here, don't you? Well, you see, I've always lived here, so naturally. Oh, that's true, said Mrs. Ahern, and laughed. Clarence always used to tell me he had to have a wife he could come home to and say, well, we're going to Chicago tomorrow to live, so pack up. I got so I never experienced. expected to live anywhere. She laughed her little laugh again.

Evelyn suspected that it was her society laugh. Your husband is a very able man, I imagine. Oh, yes, Mrs. Ahern assured her eagerly. He's brainy, Clarence is. Ideas and enthusiasm, you know. Finds out what he wants and then goes and gets it. Evelyn nodded. She was wondering if the men were still drinking punch back in the dining room.

Mrs. Ahern's history kept unfolding jerkily, but Evelyn had ceased to listen. The first odor of masked cigars began to drift in. It wasn't really a large house, she reflected. On an evening like this, the library sometimes grew blue with smoke, and next day one had to leave the windows open for hours to air the heavy staleness out of the curtains. Perhaps this partnership might—she began to speculate on a new house. Mrs. Hearn's voice drifted in on her. I really would like the recipe if you have it written down somewhere.

There was a sound of chairs in the dining room, and the men strolled in. Evelyn saw at once that her worst fears were realized. Harold's face was flushed and his words ran together at the ends of sentences, while Tom Lowry lurched when he walked and narrowly missed Irene's lap when he tried to sink onto the couch beside her. He sat there blinking dazedly at the company. Evelyn found herself blinking back at him, but she saw no humor in it. Joe Ambler was smiling contentedly and puffing on his cigar.

Only Ahern and Milton Piper seemed unaffected. "'It's a pretty fine town, Ahern,' said Ambler. "'You'll find that.' "'I found it so,' said Ahern pleasantly. "'You find it more, Ahern,' said Harold, nodding emphatically. "'If I've anything done with it—' he soared into a eulogy of the city and evelyn wondered uncomfortably if it bored every one as it bored her apparently not they were all listening attentively evelyn broke in at the first gap where have you been living mr ahern she asked interestedly then she remembered that mrs o'hearn had told her but it didn't matter harold mustn't talk so much he was such an ass when he'd been drinking

but he plopped directly back in. Tell you a herne. First you want to get a house up here on the hill. Get stern house or ridgeway house. Want to have it so people say, There's a hern house. Solid, you know, that's the fact it gives. Evelyn flushed.

This didn't sound right at all. Still, a hern didn't seem to notice anything amiss, only nodded gravely. Have you been looking? But her words trailed off unheard of. his Harold's voice boomed on. Get house, that's start. Then you get no people.

Snobbish town first toward outsider, but not long. Not after know you. People like you, he indicated a herne and his wife with a sweeping gesture. All right, cordial as anything once get by first, Burr, burr, burr. He swallowed and then said, Barrier, repeated it masterfully. Everybody looked appealingly at her brother-in-law.

but before he could intercede a thick mumble had come crowding out of tom lowry hindered by the dead cigar which he gripped firmly with his teeth hum a-a-hum a what demanded harold earnestly resignedly and with difficulty tom removed the cigar that is he removed part of it and then blew the remainder with a watt sound across the room where it landed languidly and limply in mrs herne's lap beg pardon he mumbled and rose with the vague intention of going after it milton's hand on his coat collapsed him in time and mrs ahern not ungracefully flounced the tobacco from her skirt to the floor never once looking at it i was saying continued tom thickly for that happened he waved his hand apologetically towards mrs ahern i was saying i heard all truth that country club matter milton leaned and whispered something to him "'Let me alone,' he said petulantly. "'Know what I'm doing. "'That's what they came for.' Evelyn sat there in a panic,

trying to make her mouth form words. She saw her sister's sardonic expression and Mrs. Ahern's face turning a vivid red. Ahern was looking down at his watch-chain, fingering it. "'I heard who's been keeping you out "'and he's not a bit better than you. "'I can fix whole damn thing up. "'Would have before, but I didn't know you.

Harold told me you felt bad about the thing. Milton Piper rose suddenly and awkwardly to his feet. In a second, everyone was standing tensely, and Milton was saying something very hurriedly about having to go early, and the Ahern's were listening with eager intentness. Then Mrs. Ahern swallowed and turned with a forced smile toward Jesse. Evelyn saw Tom lurch forward and put his hand on Ahern's shoulder, and suddenly she was listening to a new, anxious voice at her elbow.

and turning found Hilda, the second maid. "'Please, Miss Piper, I think Yuley got her hand poisoned. "'It's all swollen up, and her cheeks is hot, "'and she's moaning and groanin' "'Julie's?' Evelyn asked sharply. "'The party suddenly receded. "'She turned quickly, sought with her eyes for Mrs. Ahern, "'slip toward her. "'If you'll excuse me, Mrs.'

"'She had momentarily forgotten the name, "'but she went right on. My little girl's been taken sick. I'll be down when I can. She turned and ran quickly up the stairs, retaining a confused picture of rays of cigar smoke and a loud discussion in the center of the room that seemed to be developing into an argument.

Switching on the light in the nursery, she found Julie tossing feverishly and giving out odd little cries. She put her hand against the cheeks. They were burning. With an exclamation she followed her arm down under the cover until she found the hand. Hilda was right. The whole thumb was swollen to the wrist, and in the centre was a little inflamed sore.

Blood poisoning, her mind cried in terror. The bandage had come off the cut, and she'd gotten something in it. She'd cut it at three o'clock. It was now nearly eleven. Eight hours. Blood poisoning couldn't possibly develop so soon. She rushed to the phone. Dr. Martin across the street was out.

Dr. Fouke, their family physician, didn't answer. She racked her brains and in desperation called her throat specialist, and bit her lip furiously while he looked up the numbers of two physicians. During that interminable moment she thought she heard loud voices downstairs, but she seemed to be in another world now. After fifteen minutes she located a physician who sounded angry and sulky at being called out of bed. She ran back to the nurse-refer. and, looking at the hand, found it was somewhat more swollen.

"'Oh, God!' she cried, and, kneeling beside the bed, began smoothing back Julie's hair over and over. With a vague idea of getting some hot water, she rose and started toward the door, but the lace of her dress caught on the bedrail and she fell forward on her hands and knees. She struggled up and jerked frantically at the lace. The bed moved, and Julie groaned. Then, more quietly, but with suddenly fumbling fingers, she found the pleat in front, tore the whole panier completely off, and rushed from the room. Out in the hall she heard a single, loud, insistent voice, but as she reached the head of the

stairs, it ceased, and an outer door banged. The music-room came into view. Only Harold and Milton were there. The former leaning against a chair, his face very pale, his collar open, and his mouth moving loosely. What's the matter? Milton looked at her anxiously. There was a little trouble.

Then Harold saw her, and, straightening up with an effort, began to speak. So my own cousin, my own house, goddamn common Nouveau-Riche. Saw my own cousin. So my own cousin. Tom had trouble with the herne, and Harold interfered, said Milton. My lord, Milton, couldn't you have done something? "'I tried. I—' "'Julie's sick!' she interrupted.

"'She's poisoned herself. "'Get him to bed if you can.' "'Herald looked up. "'Julie's sick?' "'Paying no attention, Evelyn brushed by through the dining-room, "'catching sight with a burst of horror "'of the big punch-bowls still on the table, "'the liquid from melted ice in its bottom.

"'She heard steps on the front stairs. "'It was Milton helping Harold up, and then a mumble why julie's all right don't let em go into the nursery she shouted the hours blurred into a nightmare the doctor arrived just before midnight and within a half-hour had lanced the wound he left at two after giving her the addresses of two nurses to call up and promising to return at half-past six it was blood-poisoning at four leaving hilda by the bedside she went to her room and slipping with a shudder out of her evening dress kicked it into a corner she put on a house-dress and returned to the nursery while hilda went to make coffee not until noon could she bring herself to look into herald's room but when she did it was to find him awake and staring very miserably at the ceiling he turned bloodshot hollow eyes upon her for a minute she hated him couldn't speak A husky voice came from the bed. What time is it?

Noon. I made a damn fool. It doesn't matter, she said sharply. Julie's got blood poisoning. They may... She choked over the words. They think she'll have to lose her hand. What?

She cut herself on that... That bowl. Last night? Oh, what does it matter? She cried. She's got blood blood. poison, can't you hear? He looked at her bewildered, sat halfway up in bed. I'll get dressed, he said. Her anger subsided, and a great wave of weariness and pity for him

rolled over her. After all, it was his trouble, too. Yes, she answered listlessly. I suppose you'd better. Four, if Evelyn's beauty had hesitated in her early thirties, it came to an abrupt decision just afterward and completely left her. A tentative outlay of wrinkles on her face suddenly deepened, and flesh collected rapidly on her legs and hips and arms. Her mannerism of drawing her brows together had become an expression. It was habitual when she was reading or speaking, and even while she slept. She was forty-six.

As in most families whose fortunes have gone down rather than up, she and harold had drifted into a colorless antagonism in repose they looked at each other with the toleration they must have felt for broken old chairs evelyn worried a little when he was sick and did her best to be cheerful under the wearying depression of living with a disappointed man family bridge was over for the evening and she sighed with relief she had made more mistakes than usual this evening and she didn't care irene shouldn't have made that remark about the infantry being particularly dangerous there had been no letter for three weeks now and while this was nothing out of the ordinary it never failed to make her nervous naturally she hadn't known how many clubs were out harold had gone upstairs so she stepped out on the porch for a breath of fresh air there was a bright glamour of moonlight diffusing on the sidewalks and lawns and with a little half yawn half laugh she remembered one long moonlight affair of her youth it was astonishing to think that life had once been the sum of her current love affairs it was now the sum of her current problems there was the problem of julie julie was thirteen and lately she had been growing more and more sensitive about her deformity and preferred to stay always in her room reading a few years before she had been frightened at the idea of going to school and evelyn could not bring herself to send her so she grew up in her mother's shadow a pitiful little figure with the artificial hand that she made no attempt to use but kept forlornly in her pocket lately she had been taking lessons in using it because evelyn had feared she would cease to lift the arm altogether but after the lessons unless she made a move with it in listless obedience to her mother the little hand would creep back to the pocket of her dress

For a while her dresses were made without pockets, but Julie had moped around the house so miserably at a loss all one month that Evelyn weakened and never tried the experiment again. The problem of Donald had been different from the start. She had attempted vainly to keep him near her as she had tried to teach Julie to lean less on her. Lately the problem of Donald had been snatched out of her hands. His division had been abroad for three months. She yawned again. Life was a thing for youth. What a happy youth she must have had. She remembered her pony, bijou,

and the trip to Europe with her mother when she was eighteen. Very, very complicated, she said aloud and severely to the moon, and stepping inside was about to close the door when she heard a noise in the library and started. It was Martha, the middle-aged servant. They kept only one now. Why Martha, she said in surprise. Martha turned quickly.

Oh, I thought you was upstairs. I was just... Is anything the matter? Martha hesitated. No, I... She stood there fidgeting. It was a letter, Mrs. Piper, that I put somewhere. A letter?

Your own letter, asked Evelyn, switching on the light. No, it was to you. It was this afternoon, Mrs. Piper, in the last mail. The postman gave it to you. me and then the back door bell rang. I had it in my hand, so I must have stuck it somewhere. I thought I'd just slip in now and find it. What sort of a letter? From Mr. Donald? No, it was an advertisement, maybe, or a business letter. It was a long, narrow one, I remember. They began a search through the music room, looking on trays and mantelpieces, and then through the

library, feeling on the tops of rows of books. Martha paused in despair. i can't think where i went straight to the kitchen the dining-room maybe she started hopefully for the dining-room but turned suddenly at the sound of a gasp behind her evelyn had sat down heavily in a morris chair her brows drawn very close together eyes blinking furiously are you sick for a minute there was no answer evelyn sat there very still and martha could see the very quick rise and fall of her bosom "'Are you sick?' she repeated. "'No,' said Evelyn slowly, "'but I know where the letter is. "'Go away, Martha. I know.' "'Wonderingly Martha withdrew,

"'and still Evelyn sat there, "'only the muscles around her eyes moving, "'contracting and relaxing, "'and contracting again. "'She knew now where the letter was. "'She knew as well as if she had put it there herself. and she felt instinctively and unquestionably what the letter was. It was long and narrow like an advertisement,

but up in the corner in large letters it said war department, and, in smaller letters below, official business. She knew it lay there in the big bowl, with her name in ink on the outside, and her soul's death within. Rising uncertainly, she walked toward the dining room, feeling her way along the bookcases and through the doorway, After a moment she found the light and switched it on.

There was the bowl, reflecting the electric light in crimson squares edged with black and yellow squares edged with blue, ponderous and glittering, grotesquely and triumphantly ominous. She took a step forward and paused again. Another step and she would see over the top and into the inside. Another step and she would see an edge of white. Another step. Her hands fell on the rough, cold surface. In a moment she was tearing it open, fumbling with an obstinate fold, holding it before her while the typewritten page glared out and struck at her.

Then it fluttered like a bird to the floor. The house that had seemed whirring, buzzing, a moment since, was suddenly very quiet. A breath of air crept in through the open front door, carrying the noise of a passing motor. She heard faint sounds from upstairs, and then a grinding racket in the pipe behind the bookcases, her husband turning off a water-tap. And in that instant it was as if this were not, after all, Donald's hour, except insofar as he was a marker in the insidious contest that had gone on in sudden surges and long listless interludes between Evelyn and this cold, malignant thing of beauty,

a gift of enmity from a man whose face she had long since forgotten. With its massive brooding passivity, it lay there in the center of her house as it had lain for years, throwing out the ice-like beams of a thousand eyes, perverse glitterings merging into each other, never aging, never changing. Evelyn sat down on the edge of the table and stared at it, fascinated. It seemed to be smiling now, a very cruel smile. as if to say, You see, this time I didn't have to hurt you directly.

I didn't bother. You know it was I who took your son away. You know how cold I am and how hard and how beautiful, because once you were just as cold and hard and beautiful. The bowl seemed suddenly to turn itself over, and then to distend and swell until it became a great canopy that glittered and trembled over the room, over the house,

and as the walls melted slowly into mist Evelyn saw that it was still moving out, out and far away from her, shaking off far horizons and suns and moons and stars except as inky blots seen faintly through it. And under it walked all the people, and the light that came to them was refracted and twisted until shadow seemed light and light seemed shadow,

until the whole panorama of the world became changed and distrised. distorted under the twinkling heaven of the bowl then there came a far-away booming voice like a low clear bell it came from the centre of the bowl and down the great sides to the ground and then bounce toward her eagerly you see i am fate it shouted and stronger than your puny plans and i am how things turn out and i am different from your dreams and i am the flight of time and the end of beauty and unfulfilled desire all the accidents and imperceptions and the little minutes that shape the crucial hours are mine i am the exception that proves no rules the limits of your control the condiment in the dish of life the booming sound stopped the echoes rolled away over the wide land to the edge of the bowl that bounded the world and up the great sides and back to the centre where they hummed for a moment and died Then the great walls began slowly to bear down upon her, growing smaller and smaller, coming closer and closer as if to crush her. And as she clenched her hands and waited for the swift bruise of the cold glass, the bowl gave a sudden wrench and turned over, and lay there on the

sideboard, shining and inscrutable, reflecting in a hundred prisms myriad, many-colored glints and gleams and crossings and interlacings of light. The cold wind blew in again, through the front door, and with a desperate, frantic energy, Evelyn stretched both her arms around the bowl. She must be quick, she must be strong. She tightened her arms until they ached, totted the thin strips of muscle under her soft flesh, and with a mighty effort, raised it and held it. She felt the wind blow cold on her back, where her dress had come apart from the strain of her

effort, and as she felt it she turned toward it, and staggered under the great weight, out through the library and on toward the front door. She must be quick, she must be strong. The blood in her arms throbbed dully, and her knees kept giving way under her, but the feel of the cool glass was good. Out the front door, she tottered, and over to the own steps, and there, summoning every fiber of her soul and body for a last effort, swung herself half around. For a second, as she tried to lose her hold, her numb fingers clung to the rough surface, and in that second she slipped, and, losing balance, toppled forward with a despairing cry,

her arms still around the bowl. Down! Over the way, lights went on. Far down the block the crash was heard, and pedestrians rushed up wonderingly. Upstairs a tired man awoke from the edge of sleep, and a little girl whimpered in a haunted doze, and all over the moonlit sidewalk around the still, black form, hundreds of prisms and cubes and splinters of glass reflected the light in little gleams of blue and black-edged with yellow and yellow and crimson edged with black end of section four section five of flappers and philosophers by f scott fitzgerald this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by m b bernice bobs her hair one after dark on saturday night one could stand on the first tea of the golf course and see the country club windows as a yellow expanse

over a very black and wavy ocean. The waves of this ocean, so to speak, were the heads of many curious caddies, a few of the more ingenious chauffeurs, the golf professional's deaf sister, and there were usually several stray, diffident waves who might have rolled inside had they so desired. This was the gallery. The balcony was inside. It consisted of the circle of wicker chairs that lined the wall of the combination clubroom and ballroom. at these saturday night dances it was largely feminine a great babel of middle-aged ladies with sharp eyes and icy hearts behind lorgnettes and large bosoms

the main function of the balcony was critical it occasionally showed grudging admiration but never approval for it is well known among ladies over thirty-five that when the younger set dance in the summer time it is with the very worst intentions in the world and if they are not bombarded with stony eyes stray couples will dance weird barbaric interludes in the corners and the more popular more dangerous girls will sometimes be kissed in the parked limousines of unsuspecting dowagers but after all this critical circle is not close enough to the stage to see the actors faces and catch the subtler by-play it can only frown and lean ask questions and make satisfactory deductions from its set of postulates such as the one which states that every young man with a large comes leads the life of a hunted partridge it never really appreciates the drama of the shifting semi-cruel world of adolescence no boxes and chorus are represented by the medley of faces and voices that sway to the plaintive african rhythm of dyer's dance orchestra From 16-year-old Otis Ormond, who has two more years at Hill School, to G. Reese Stoddard, over whose bureau at home hangs a Harvard law diploma. From little Madeline Hogue, whose hair still feels strange and uncomfortable on top of her head, to Bessie McCrae, who has been the life of the party a little too long, more than ten years. The medley is not only the center of the stage, but contains the only people capable of getting an unobstructed view of it. with a flourish and a bang the music stops the couples exchange artificial effortless smiles facetiously repeat la de da dum dum and then the clatter of young feminine voices soars over the burst of clapping

a few disappointed stags caught in mid-floors they had been about to cut in subsided listlessly back to the walls because this was not like the riotous christmas dances these summer hops were considered just pleasantly warm and exciting where even the younger marrieds rose and performed ancient waltzes and terrifying fox-trots to the tolerant amusement of their younger brothers and sisters warren mackintyre who casually attended yale being one of the unfortunate stags felt in these dinner-coat pocket for a cigarette and strolled out on to the wide semi-dark verandah where couples were scattered at tables filling the lantern hung night with vague words and hazy laughter he nodded here and there at the less absorbed and as he passed each couple some half-forgotten fragment of a story played in his mind for it was not a large city and every one was whose who to everyone else's past there for example was jim strained and ethel de morrist who had been privately engaged for three years every one knew that as soon as jim managed to hold a job for more than two months she would marry him yet how bored they both looked and how wearily ethel regarded jim's sometimes, as if she wondered why she had trained the vines of her affection on such a wind-shaken poplar. Warren was nineteen, and rather pitying with those of his friends who hadn't gone east to college. But like most boys, he bragged tremendously about the girls of his city

when he was away from it. There was Chenevieve Ormond, who regularly made the rounds of dances, house parties, and football games at Princeton, Yale, Williams, and Cornell. There was black-eyed Roberta Dillon, who was quite as famous to her own generation as Hiram Johnson or Ty Cobb. And, of course, there was Marjorie Harvey, who besides having a fairy-like face and a dazzling, bewildering tongue, was already justly celebrated for having turned five cartwheels in succession during the past pump and slipper dance at New Haven. Warren, who had grown up across the street from Marjorie, had long been crazy about her. Sometimes she seemed to reciprocate his feeling with a faint gratitude but she had tried him by her infallible test and informed him gravely that she did not love him her test was that when she was away from him she forgot him and had affairs with other boys

warren found this discouraging especially as margery had been making little trips all summer and for the first two or three days after each arrival home he saw great heaps of mail on the harvey's hall table addressed to her in various masculine handwritings to make matters worse all during the month of August she had been visited by her cousin Bernice from O'Clair, and it seemed impossible to see her alone. It was always necessary to hunt round and find someone to take care of Bernice. As August waned, this was becoming more and more difficult. Much as Warren worshipped Marjorie, he had to admit that cousin Bernice was sort of dopless. She was pretty, with dark hair and high colour, but she was no fun on a party. Every Saturday night he danced a long, arduous duty dance with her to please Marjorie, but he had never been anything but bored in her company.

Warren, a soft voice at his elbow, broke in upon his thoughts, and he turned to see Marjorie, flushed and radiant as usual. She laid a hand on his shoulder, and a glow settled almost imperceptibly on him. Warren, she whispered, do something for me. Dance with Bernice. She's been stuck with little Otis Ormond for almost an hour. Warren's glow faded. Why, sure, he answered half-heartedly.

You don't mind, do you? I'll see that you don't get stuck. It's all right. Marjorie smiled. That smile was thanks enough. You're an angel, and I'm obliged loads. With a sigh, the angel glanced round the veranda. but Bernice and Otis were not in sight. He wandered back inside,

and there in front of the women's dressing-room he found Otis in the center of a group of young men who were convulsed with laughter. Otis was brandishing a piece of timber he had picked up and discoursing volubly. "'She's gone to fix her hair,' he announced wildly. "'I'm waiting to dance another hour with her.' Their laughter was renewed.

"'Why don't some of you cut in?' cried Otis, resentfully. She likes more variety. Why Otis, suggested a friend, you've just barely got used to her. Why the two-by-four, Otis? inquired Warren, smiling. The two-by-four? Oh, this? This is a club. When she comes out, I'll hit her on the head and knock her in again. Warren collapsed on a settee and howled with glee. Never mind, Otis, he articulated finally. I have a i am relieving you this time odus simulated a sudden fainting attack and handed the stick to warrant if you need it old man he said hoarsely no matter how beautiful or brilliant a girl may be the reputation of not being frequently cut in on makes her position at a dance unfortunate perhaps boys prefer her company to that of the butterflies with whom they dance a dozen times in evening but youth in this jazz nourished generation is temperamentally restless and the idea of fox-trotting more than one full fox-trot with the same girl is distasteful not to say odious when it comes to several dances and the intermissions between she can be quite sure that a young man once relieved will never tread on her wayward toes again

warren danced the next full dance with bernice and finally thankful for the intermission he led her to a table on the veranda there was a moment's silence while she did unimpressive things with her fan it's a hotter here than in o'clair she said warren stifled a sigh and nodded it might be for all he knew or cared he wondered idly whether she was a poor conversationalist because he wondered idly whether she was a poor conversationalist because of her. she got no attention, or got no attention because she was a poor conversationalist. You going to be here much longer, he asked, and then turned rather red. She might suspect his reasons for asking. Another week, she answered, and stared at him as if to lunge at his next remark when it left his lips. Warren fidgeted it. Then, with a sudden charitable impulse, he decided to try a part of his line on her. He turned and looked at her eyes. "'You've got an awfully kissable mouth,' he began quietly.

"'This was a remark that he sometimes made to girls at college proms "'when they were talking in just such half-dark as this. "'Bernice distinctly jumped. "'She turned an ungraceful red and became clumsy with her fan. "'No one had ever made such a remark to her before. "'Fresh!' "'The word had slipped out before she realized it and she bit her lip. "'Too late she decided to be amused.

and offered him a flustered smile. Warren was annoyed. Though not accustomed to have that remark taken seriously, still it usually provoked a laugh or a paragraph of sentimental banter, and he hated to be called fresh except in a joking way. His charitable impulse died, and he switched the topic. Jim Strain and Ethel de Morrist sitting out as usual, he commented. This was more in Bernice's line,

but a faint regret mingled with her relief as the subject changed. Men did not talk to her about kissable mouths, but she knew that they talked in some such way to other girls. Oh, yes, she said, and laughed. I hear they've been moaning round for years without a red penny. Isn't it silly? Warren's disgust increased. Jim Strain was a close friend of his brothers,

and anyway he considered it bad form to sneer at people for not having money. but bernice had had no intention of sneering she was merely nervous two when marjorie and bernice reached home at half after midnight they said good-night at the top of the stairs though cousins they were not intimates as a matter of fact margery had no female intimates she considered girls stupid bernice on the contrary all through this parent arranged visit had rather longed to exchange those confidences favoured with giggily and tears that she considered an indispensable factor in all feminine intercourse, but in this respect she found Marjorie rather cold, felt somehow the same difficulty in talking to her that she had in talking to men. Marjorie never giggled, was never frightened, seldom embarrassed, and in fact had very few of the qualities which Bernice considered appropriately and blessedly feminine. As Bernice busied herself with toothbrush and paste this night, she wondered for the hundredth

time why she never had any attention when she was away from home. That her family were the wealthiest in Eau Claire, that her mother entertained tremendously, gave little dinners for her daughter before all dances and bought her a car of her own to drive round in, never occurred to her as factors in her hometown social success. Like most girls she had been brought up on the warm milk prepared by Annie Fellows Johnson and on novels in which the female was beloved because of certain mysterious womanly qualities always mentioned but never displayed. Bernice felt a vague pain that she was not at present engaged in being popular.

She did not know that had it not been for Marjorie's campaigning, she would have danced the entire evening with one man. But she knew that even in Eau Claire, other girls with less position and less pulchritude were given a much bigger rush. She attributed this to something subtly unscrupulous in those girls. It had never worried her, and if it had had, her mother. mother would have assured her that the other girls cheapened themselves and that men really respected girls like Bernice. She turned out the light in her bathroom, and on an impulse decided to go in

and chat for a moment with her Aunt Josephine, whose light was still on. Her soft slippers bore her noiselessly down the carpeted hall, but hearing voices inside she stopped near the partly opened door. Then she caught her own name, and without any definite intention of eavesdropping, lingered and the thread of the conversation going on inside pierced her consciousness sharply as if it had been drawn through with a needle she's absolutely hopeless it was marjorie's voice i know what you're going to say so many people have told you how pretty and sweet she is and how she can cook what of it she has a bum time men don't like her what's a little cheap popularity mrs harvey sounded annoyed it's everything when you're eighteen said margery emphatically i've done my best i've been polite and i've made men dance with her but they just won't stand being bored when i think of that gorgeous colouring wasted on such a ninny and think of what martha carey could do with it oh there's no courtesy these days mrs harvey's voice implied that modern situations were too much for her when she was a girl all young ladies who belonged to nice families had glorious times

well said marjorie no girl can permanently bolster up a lame duck visitor because these days it's every girl for herself i've even tried to drop hints about clothes and things and she's been furious giving me the funniest looks she's sensitive enough to know she's not getting away with much but i'll bet she consoles herself by thinking that she's very virtuous and that i'm too gay and fickle and will come to a bad end all unpopular girls think that way sour grapes sarah hopkins refers to jean vieff and reberta and me as gardinia girls i bet she'd give ten years of her life and her european education to be a gardinia girl and have three or four men in love with her and be cut in on every few feet it dances it seems to me said mrs harvey rather wearily that you ought to be able to do something for bernice i know she's not very vivacious marjorie groaned vivacious good grief i've never heard her say anything to a boy except that it's hot or the floor is crowded or that she's going to school in new york next year sometimes she asks them what kind of car they have and tells them the kind she has thrilling there was a short silence and then mrs harvey took up her refrain all i know is that girls not half so sweet and attractive get partners martha carey for instance is-he's "'Stout and loud, and her mother is distinctly common. "'Roberta Dillon is so thin this year

"'that she looks as though Arizona were the place for her. "'She's dancing herself to death.' "'But mother,' objected Marjorie impatiently, "'Martha is cheerful and awfully witty and an awfully slick girl, "'and Roberta's a marvelous dancer. "'She's been popular for ages.' "'Mrs. Harvey yawned. "'I think it's that crazy Indian blood in Bernice,'

continued Marjorie. Maybe she's a reversion to type. Indian women all just sat round and never said anything. "'Go to bed, you silly child,' laughed Mrs. Harvey. I wouldn't have told you that if I thought you were going to remember it. And I think most of your ideas are perfectly idiotic,' she finished sleepily. There was another silence, while Marjorie considered whether or not convincing her mother was worth the trouble. People over forty can seldom be permanently convinced of anything. At eighteen, our convictions are hills from which we look. At forty-five, there are caves in which we hide. Having decided this, Marjorie said good-night. When she came out into the hall it was quite empty. Three. While Marjorie was breakfasting late next day, Bernice came into the room with a rather

formal good-morning, sat down opposite, stared intently over. and slightly moistened her lips. What's on your mind? inquired Marjorie rather puzzled. Bernice paused before she threw her hand grenade. I heard what you said about me to your mother last night. Marjorie was startled, but she showed only a faintly heightened colour, and her voice was quite even when she spoke.

Where were you? In the hall. I didn't mean to listen. At first. After an involuntary look of contempt, Marjorie dropped her eyes and became very interested in balancing a stray cornflake on her finger. I guess I'd better go back to O'Clair, if I'm such a nuisance. Bernice's lower lip was trembling violently, and she continued on a wavering note. I've tried to be nice, and I've been first neglected and then insulted.

No one ever visited me and got such treatment. Marjorie was silent. But I'm in the way, I see. I'm a drag on you. Your friends don't like me. She paused and then remembered another one of her grievances. Of course I was furious last week when you tried to hint to me that my dress was unbecoming. Don't you think I know how to dress myself?

No, murmured Marjorie less than half aloud. What? I didn't hint anything, said Marjorie succinctly. said, as I remember, that it was better to wear a becoming dress three times straight than to alternate it with two frights. Do you think that was a very nice thing to say? I wasn't trying to be nice. Then, after a pause, when do you want to go?

Bernice drew in her breath sharply. Oh! It was a little half-cry. Marjorie looked up in surprise. Didn't you say you were going? "'Yes, but—oh, you were only bluffing!' They stared at each other across the breakfast table for a moment. Misty waves were passing before Bernice's eyes,

while Marjorie's face wore that rather hard expression that she used when slightly intoxicated undergraduates were making love to her. "'So you were bluffing,' she repeated, as if it were what she might have expected. Bernice admitted it by bursting into tears. Marjorie's eyes showed boredom. You're my cousin, sobbed Bernice. I'm visiting you. I was to stay a month, and if I go home, my mother will know and she'll wonder.

Marjorie waited until the shower of broken words collapsed into little sniffles. I'll give you my month's allowance, she said coldly, and you can spend this last week anywhere you want. There's a very nice hotel. Bernice's sobs rose to a flute note, and rising of a sudden she fled from the room. An hour later, while Marjorie was in the library absorbed in composing one of those non-committal, marvellously elusive letters that only a young girl can write, Bernice reappeared very red-eyed and consciously calm.

She cast no glance at Marjorie, but took a book at random from the shelf and sat down as if to read. Marjorie seemed absorbed in her letter and continued writing. When the clock showed noon, Bernice closed her book with a snap. I suppose I'd better get my railroad ticket. This was not the beginning of the speech she had rehearsed upstairs, but as Marjorie was not getting her cues, wasn't urging her to be reasonable, it's all a mistake. It was the best opening she could muster.

Just wait till I finish this letter, said Marjorie without looking round. i want to get it off in the next mail after another minute during which her pen scratched busily she turned round and relaxed with an air of at your service again bernice had to speak do you want me to go home well said marjorie considering i suppose if you're not having a good time you'd better go no use being miserable don't you think common kindness oh please don't quote little women, cried Marjorie impatiently, that's out of style. You think so? Heavens, yes. What modern girl could live like those inane females? They were the models for our mothers.

Marjorie laughed. Yes, they were. Not? Besides, our mothers are all very well in their way, but they know very little about their daughter's problems. Bernice drew herself up. Please don't talk about my mother. Marjorie laughed.

I don't think I mentioned her. Bernice felt that she was being led away from her subject. Do you think you've treated me very well? I've done my best. You're rather hard material to work with. The lids of Bernice's eyes reddened. I think you're hard and selfish and you haven't a feminine quality in you. Oh, my lord, cried Marjorie in desperation.

you little nut girls like you are responsible for all the tiresome colorless marriages all those ghastly inefficiencies that pass as feminine qualities what a blow it must be when a man with imagination marries the beautiful bundle of clothes that he's been building ideas round and finds that she's just a weak whining cowardly mass of affectations bernice's mouth had slipped half open the womanly woman continued marjorie her whole early life is occupied in whining criticisms of girls like me who really do have a good time bernice's jaw descended farther as marjorie's voice rose there's some excuse for an ugly girl whining if i'd been irretrievably ugly i'd never have forgiven my parents for bringing me into the world but you're starting life without any handicap marjorie's little fist clinched if you expect me to weep with you you'll be disappointed go or stay just as you like and picking up her letters she left the room berenice claimed a headache and failed to appear at luncheon they had a matinee date for the afternoon but the headache persisting marjorie made explanations to a not very downcast boy but when she returned late in the afternoon she found bernice with a strangely set face waiting for her in her bedroom. I've decided, began Bernice without preliminaries, that maybe you're right about things. Possibly not.

But if you'll tell me why your friends aren't interested in me, I'll see if I can do what you want me to. Marjorie was at the mirror shaking down her hair. Do you mean it? Yes. Without reservations. Will you do exactly what I say? well i well nothing will you do exactly as i say if they're sensible things they're not you're no case for sensible things are you going to make to recommend yes everything if i tell you to take boxing lessons you'll have to do it right home and tell your mother you're going to stay another two weeks if you'll tell me all right i'll just give you a little bit i'll just give you a little bit of you'll just give you a little two weeks if you'll tell me all right i'll just give you a little

few examples now. First, you have no ease of manner. Why? Because you're never sure about your personal appearance. When a girl feels that she's perfectly groomed and dressed, she can forget that part of her. That's charm. The more parts of yourself you can afford to forget, the more charm you have. Don't I look all right? No. For instance, you never take care of your eyebrows. They're black and lustrous, but by leaving them straggly, they're a blemish. They'd be beautiful if you take care of them, and one-tenth the time you take doing nothing. You're going to brush them so that they'll grow straight. Bernice raised the browsing question.

Do you mean to say that men notice eyebrows? Yes, subconsciously. And when you go home, you ought to have your teeth straightened a little. It's almost imperceptible, still. But I thought, in front of course. interrupted Bernice in bewilderment, that you despised little dainty feminine things like that. I hate dainty minds, answered Marjorie, but a girl has to be dainty in person. If she looks like a million dollars, she can talk about Russia, ping pong, or the League of Nations, and get away with it.

What else? Oh, I'm just beginning. There's your dancing. Don't I dance, all right? No, you don't. You lean on a man. yes you do ever so slightly i noticed it when we were dancing together yesterday and you danced standing up straight instead of bending over a little probably some little old lady on the sideline once told you that you looked so dignified that way but except with a very small girl it's much harder on the man and he's the one that counts go on bernice's brain was reeling well you've got to learn to be nice to men who are sad

birds. You look as if you'd been insulted whenever you're thrown with any except the most popular boys. Why, Bernice, I'm cutting on every few feet, and who does most of it? Why, those very sad birds, no girl can afford to neglect them. They're the big part of any crowd. Young boys too shy to talk are the very best conversational practice. Clumsy boys are the best dancing practice. If you can follow them and yet look graceful, you can follow a baby tank across a barbed wire skyscraper. Bernice sighed profoundly, but Marjorie was not through. If you go to a dance and really amuse, say, three sad birds that dance with you,

if you talk so well to them that they forget they're stuck with you, you've done something. They'll come back next time, and gradually so many sad birds will dance with you that the attractive boys will see there's no danger of being stuck. Then they'll dance with you. "'Yes,' agreed Bernice faintly. "'I think I begin to see.' "'And finally,' concluded Marjorie, "'poise and charm will just come.

"'You'll wake up some morning knowing you've attained it, "'and men will know it, too.' "'Berenice rose. "'It's been awfully kind of you. "'But nobody's ever talked to me like this before, "'and I feel sort of startled.' "'Marjorie made no answer, "'but gazed pensively at her own image in the mirror,

her. "'You're a peach to help me,' continued Bernice. Still, Marjorie did not answer, and Bernice thought she had sounded too grateful. "'I know you don't like sentiment,' she said timidly. Marjorie turned to her quickly. "'Oh, I was thinking about that. I was considering whether we hadn't better bob your hair.' Bernice collapsed backwards upon the bed. Four

On the following Wednesday evening there was a dinner dance at the country club. When the guests strolled in, Bernice found her place card with a slight feeling of irritation. Though at her right sat G. Reese's daughter, a most desirable and distinguished young bachelor, the all-important left held only Charlie Paulson. Charlie lacked height, beauty, and social shrewdness, and in her new enlightenment, Bernice decided that his only qualification to be her partner was that he had never been stuck with her. But this feeling of irritation left with the last of the soup plates, and Marjorie's specific instruction came to her. Swallowing her pride, she turned to Charlie Paulson and plunged.

Do you think I ought to bob my hair, Mr. Charlie Paulson? Charlie looked up in surprise. Why? "'Because I'm considering it. It's such a sure and easy way of attracting attention.' Charlie smiled pleasantly. He could not know that this had been rehearsed. He replied that he didn't know much about bobbed hair. But Bernice was there to tell him, "'I want to be a society vampire, you see,' she announced coolly, and went on to inform him that bobbed hair was the necessary prelude. She added that she wanted to ask his advice because

she had heard he was so critical about girls. Charlie, who knew as much about the psychology of women as he did of the mental states of Buddhist contemplatives, felt vaguely flattered. So I've decided, she continued, her voice rising slightly, that early next week I'm going down to the Sevier Hotel Barbershop, sit in the first chair and get my hair bobbed. She faltered, noticing that the people near her had paused in their conversation, and were listening. But after a confused second,

Marjorie's coaching told, and she finished her paragraph to the vicinity at large. Of course, I'm charging admission, but if you'll all come down and encourage me, I'll issue passes for the inside seats. There was a ripple of appreciative laughter, and under cover of it, G. Reese Stoddard, leaned over quickly and said close to her ear, I'll take a box right now. She met his eyes and smiled as if she had said something surpassingly brilliant. "'Do you believe in bobbed hair?' asked G. Reese in the same undertone. "'I think it's un-moral,' affirmed to Bernice gravely.

"'But, of course, you've either got to amuse people, or feed him, or shock him.' Marjorie had culled this from Oscar Wild. It was greeted with a ripple of laughter from the men and a series of quick, intent looks from the girls. And then, as though she had said nothing of wit or moment, Bernice turned again to Charlie and spoke confidentially in his ear. I want to ask your opinion of several people. I imagine you're a wonderful judge of character. Charlie thrilled faintly, paid her a subtle compliment by overturning her water.

Two hours later, while Warren McIntyre was standing passively in the stagline, abstractedly watching the dancers and wondering whither and with whom Marjorie had disappeared, and unrelated perception began to creep slowly upon him, a perception that Bernice, cousin to Marjorie, had been cut in on several times in the past five minutes. He closed his eyes, opened them, and looked again. Several minutes back she had been dancing with a visiting boy, a matter easily accounted for, a visiting boy would know no better. But now she was dancing with someone else, and there was Charlie Paulson headed for her

with enthusiastic determination in his eye. Funny, Charlie seldom danced with more than three girls in evening. Warren was distinctly surprised when, the exchange having been affected, the man relieved proved to be none other than G. Reese stoddard himself. And G. Reese seemed not at all jubilant at being relieved. Next time Bernice danced near, Warren regarded her intently. Yes, she was pretty distinct.

pretty and to-night her face seemed really vivacious she had that look that no woman however histrionically proficient can successfully counterfeit she looked as if she were having a good time he liked the way she had her hair arranged wondered if it was brilliantine that made it glisten so and that dress was becoming a dark red that set off her shadowy eyes and high colouring he remembered that he thought her pretty when she first came to town before he realized that she was dull. Too bad she was dull. Dull girls unbearable. Certainly pretty, though. His thoughts zigzagged back to Marjorie. This disappearance would be like other disappearances. When she reappeared, he would demand where she had been, would be told emphatically that it was none of his business. What a pity she was so sure of him! She basked in the knowledge that no other girl in town interested him. She He defied him to fall in love with Junvieve or Roberta.

Warren sighed. The way to Marjorie's affections was a labyrinth indeed. He looked up. Bernice was again dancing with the visiting boy. Half unconsciously he took a step out from the stag line in her direction, and hesitated. Then he said to himself that it was charity. He walked toward her, collided suddenly with G. Reese's stoddard. "'Pardon me,' said Warren.

"'But Gee-Rise had not stopped to apologize. "'He had again cut in on Bernice. "'That night at one o'clock, Marjorie, "'with one hand on the electric light switch in the hall, "'turned to take a last look at Bernice's sparkling eyes. "'So it worked?' "'Oh, Marjorie, yes!' cried Bernice. "'I saw you were having a gay time.'

"'I did. "'The only trouble was. that about midnight I ran short of talk. I had to repeat myself, with different men, of course. I hope they won't compare notes. Men don't, said Marjorie, yawning, and it wouldn't matter if they did. They'd think you were even trickier. She snapped out the light, and as they started up the stairs, Bernice grasped the banister, thankfully. For the first time in her life, she had been danced, tired. You see, said Marjorie at the top of the stairs,

one man sees another man cut in, and he thinks there must be something there. Well, we'll fix up some new stuff tomorrow. Good night. Good night. As Bernice took down her hair, she passed the evening before her in review. She had followed instructions exactly.

Even when Charlie Paulson cut in for the eighth time, she had simulated delight and had apparently been both interested and flattered. She had not talked about the weather or Eau Claire or automobiles or her school, but had confined her conversation to me, you, and us. But a few minutes before she fell asleep, a rebellious thought was churning drowsily in her brain. After all, it was she who had done it.

Marjorie, to be sure, had given her conversation, but then Marjorie got so much of her conversation out of thinking, she read. Bernice had bought the red dress, though she had never valued it highly before Marjorie dug it out of her trunk, and her own voice had said the words, her own lips had smiled, her own feet had danced. Marjorie, nice girl, vain though, nice evening, nice boys, like Warren. Warren, Warren, what's his name?

Warren Warren She fell asleep Five To Bernice the next week was a revelation With the feeling that people really enjoyed looking at her and listening to her Came the foundation of self-confidence Of course there were numerous mistakes at first

She did not know for instance that Dracaudaio was studying for the ministry She was unaware that he had cut in on her because he thought she was was a quiet reserved girl. Had she known these things, she would not have treated him to the line which began, Hello, Shell Shock! And continued with the bathtub story. It takes a frightful lot of energy to fix my hair in the summer. There's so much of it.

So I always fix it first and powder my face and put on my hat. Then I get into the bathtub and dress afterward. Don't you think that's the best plan? Though Dracoteo was in the throes of difficulties concerning baptism by immersion, and might possibly have seen a connection it must be admitted that he did not he considered feminine bathing an immoral subject and gave her some of his ideas on the depravity of modern society but to offset that unfortunate occurrence bernice had several signal successes to her credit little odys ormond pleaded off from a tribeast and elected instead to follow her with a puppy-like devotion to the amusement of his crowd and to the irritation of g restothered several of whose afternoon calls od is completely ruined by the disgusting tenderness of the glances he bent on bernice he even told her the story of the two by four in the dressing-room to show her how frightfully mistaken he and everyone else had been in their first judgment of her bernice laughed off that incident with a slight sinking sensation of all bernice's conversation perhaps the best known and most universally approved was the line about the bobbing of her hair

oh bernice when are you going to get the hair bobbed day after to-morrow maybe she would reply laughing will you come and see me because i'm counting on you you know will we you know but you better hurry up bernice used tonsorial intentions where strictly dishonorable would laugh again pretty soon now you'd be surprised but perhaps the most significant symbol of her success was the gray car of the hypercritical warren mackintyre parked daily in front of the harvey house at first the parlor maid was distinctly startled when he asked for bernice instead of marjorie after a week of it she told the cook that miss bernice had got a hold of miss marjorie's best fellow and miss berenice had perhaps it began with warren's desire to rouse jealousy in margery perhaps it was the familiar though unrecognized strain of margery in bernice's conversation perhaps it was both of these and something of sincere attraction besides but somehow the collective mind of the younger set knew within a week that margery's most reliable bow had made an amazing face about, and was giving an indisputable rush to Marjorie's guest. The question of the moment was how Marjorie would take it. Warren called Bernice on the phone twice a day, sent her notes, and they were frequently

seen together in his roadster, obviously engrossed in one of those tense, significant conversations as to whether or not he was sincere. Marjorie, on being twitted, only laughed. She said she was mighty glad that Warren had at last found someone who appreciated him. So the younger set laughed too and guessed that Marjorie didn't care and let it go at that. One afternoon when there were only three days left of her visit, Bernice was waiting in the hall for Warren, with whom she was going to a bridge party. She was in rather a blissful mood, and when Marjorie, also bound for the party, appeared beside her and began casually to adjust

her hat in the mirror, Bernice was utterly unprepared for anything in the nature of a clash. Marjorie did her work very coldly and succinctly in three sentences. You may as well get Warren out of your head, she said coldly. What? Bernice was utterly astounded. You may as well stop making a fool of yourself over Warren McIntyre. He doesn't care a snap of his fingers about you. For a tense moment they regarded each other.

Marjorie, scornful, aloof. bernice astounded half angry half afraid then two cars drove up in front of the house and there was a riotous honking both of them gasped faintly turned and side by side hurried out all through the bridge party bernice strove in vain to master a rising uneasiness she had offended margery the sphinx of sphinxes with the most wholesome and innocent intentions in the world she had stolen marjorie's property she felt suddenly and horribly guilty after the bridge game when they sat in an informal circle and the conversation became general the storm gradually broke little otis ormond inadvertently precipitated it when you're going back to kindergarten otis someone had asked me de bernice gets her hair bobbed then your education's over said marjorie quickly that's only a bluff of hers i should think you'd have realized that a fact demanded odys giving berenice a reproachful glance bernice's ears burned as she tried to think of an effectual comeback in the face of this direct attack her imagination was paralyzed there's a lot of bluffs in the world continued marjorie quite pleasantly i should think you'd be young enough to know that otis well said otis maybe so but gee with a line like bernice's really yawned marjorie what's her latest bon mo no one seemed to know in fact bernice having trifled with her mues's beau had said nothing memorable of late

was that really all a line asked reberta curiously bernice hesitated she felt that wit in some form was demanded of her but under her cousin's suddenly frigid eyes she was completely incapacitated I don't know, she stalled. Splash, said Marjorie, admit it. Bernice saw that Warren's eyes had left a ukulele he had been tinkering with and were fixed on her questioningly. Oh, I don't know, she repeated steadily. Her cheeks were glowing. Splush, remarked Marjorie again.

Come through, Bernice, urged Otis, tell her where to get off. Bernice looked round again. She seemed unable to get away from Warren's eyes. I like bobbed hair, she said hurriedly, as if he had asked her a question. And I intend to bob mine. When? demanded Marjorie. Any time? No time like the present, suggested Roberta.

Otis jumped to his feet. Good stuff, he cried. We'll have a summer bobbing party. Sevier Hotel Barbershop, I think you said. In an instant all were on their feet. Bernice's heart throbbed violently. What? she gasped. Out of the group came Marjorie's voice very clear and contemptuous.

Don't worry, she'll back out. Come on, Bernice, cried Otis, starting toward the door. Four eyes, Warrens and Marjorie's, stared at her, challenged her. defied her for another second she wavered wildly all right she said swiftly i don't care if i do an eternity of minutes later riding down town through the late afternoon beside warren the others following in roberta's car close behind Bernice had all the sensations of Marie Antoinette bound for the guillotine in a tumbril. Vaguely she wondered why she did not cry out that it was all a mistake. It was all she could do to keep from clutching her hair with both hands to protect it from the suddenly hostile world. Yet she did neither.

Even the thought of her mother was no deterrent now. This was the test supreme of her sportsmanship, her right to walk unchallenged in the starry heaven of popular girls. Warren was moodily silent, and when they came to the hotel, he drew up at the curb and nodded to Bernice to proceed him out. Roberta's car emptied a laughing crowd into the shop, which presented two bold plate-glass windows to the street. Bernice stood on the curb and looked at the sign. It was a guillotine indeed, and the hangman was the first barber, who, attired in a white coat in smoking a cigarette, leaned nonchalantly against the first chair.

You must have heard of her. You must have been waiting all week, smoking eternal cigarettes beside that portentous too often mentioned first chair. They blindfold her? No, but they would tie a white cloth round her neck, lest any of her blood. Nonsense, hair, should get on her clothes. All right, Bernice, said Warren quickly. With her chin in the air, she crossed the sidewalk, pushed open the swinging screen door,

and giving not a glance to the uproarious, riotous row that occupied the waiting bench, went up to the first barber. I want you to bob my hair. The first barber's mouth slid somewhat open. His cigarette dropped to the floor. Huh? My hair! Bob it!

refusing further preliminaries bernice took her seat on high a man in the chair next to her turned on his side and gave her a glance half lather half amazement one barber started and spoiled little willie schooneman's monthly haircut mr o'reilly in the last chair grunted and swore musically an ancient gaelic as a razor bit into his cheek two boot-blacks became wide-eyed and rushed for her feet no bernice didn't care for a shine outside a passer-by stopped and stared a couple joined him half a dozen small boy's noses sprang into life flattened against the glass and snatches of conversation borne on the summer breeze drifted in through the screen door look at a long hair on a kid where'd you get that stuff that's a bearded lady he just finished shaving but bernice saw nothing heard nothing her only living sense told her that this man in the white coat had removed one tortoise-shell comb and then another that his fingers were fumbling clumsily with unfamiliar hairpins that this hair this wonderful hair of hers was going she would never again feel its long voluptuous pull as it hung in a dark brown glory down her back for a second she was near breaking down and then the picture before her swam mechanically into her vision marjorie's mouth curling into a faint ironic smile as if to say give up and get down you tried to buck me and i called your bluff you see you haven't got a prayer

and some last energy rose up in bernice for she clinched her hands under the white cloth and there was a curious narrowing of her eyes that marjorie remarked on to some one long afterward twenty minutes later the barber swung her round to face the mirror and she flinched at the full extent of the damage that had been wrought her hair was not curly and now it lay in lank lifeless blocks on both sides of her suddenly pale face it was ugly as sin she had known it would be ugly as sin her face's chief charm had been a madonna-like simplicity now that was gone and she was well frightfully mediocre Not stagy, only ridiculous, like a Greenwich villager who had left her spectacles at home. As she climbed down from the chair she tried to smile, failed miserably. She saw two of the girls exchange glances, noticed Marjorie's mouth curved in attenuated mockery, and that Warren's eyes were suddenly very cold. You see?

Her words fell into an awkward pause. I've done it. yes you've done it admitted warren do you like it there was a half-hearted sure from two or three voices another awkward pause and then marjorie turned swiftly and with serpent-like intensity to warren would you mind running me down to the cleaners she asked i've simply got to get a dress there before supper robert is driving right home and she can take the others warren stared abstractedly at some infinite speck out the window then for an instant his eyes rested coldly on bernice before they turned to marjorie be glad to he said slowly six bernice did not fully realize the outrageous trap that had been set for her until she met her aunt's amazed glance just before dinner why bernice i've bobbed it aunt josephine why child don't you like it why bernice i suppose i've shocked you no but what'll mrs deo think to-morrow night bernice you should have waited until after the deos dance you should have waited if you wanted to do that it was sudden aunt josephine

anyway what does it matter to mrs dale particularly why child cried mrs harvey in her paper on the foibles of the younger generation that she read at the last meeting of the thursday club she devoted fifteen minutes to bobbed hair it's her pet abomination and the dance is for you and margery i'm sorry oh bernice what'll your mother say she'll think i let you do it i'm sorry dinner was an agony she had made a hasty attempt with a curling-iron and burned her finger and much hair she could see that her aunt was both worried and grieved and her uncle kept saying i'll be darned over and over in a hurt and faintly hostile tone and margery sat very quietly entrenched behind a faint smile a faintly mocking smile somehow she got through the evening three boys called marjorie disappeared with one of them and bernice made a listless unsuccessful attempt to entertain the two others sighed thankfully as she climbed the stairs to her room at half-past ten what a day when she had undressed for the night the door opened and margery came in bernice she said i am awfully sorry about the day o dance i'll give you my word of honor i'd forgotten all about it "'It's all right,' said Bernice shortly. Standing before the mirror, she passed her comb slowly through her short hair.

"'I'll take you down tomorrow,' continued Marjorie, "'and the hairdresser will fix it so you'll look slick. "'I didn't imagine you go through with it. "'I'm really mighty sorry.' "'Oh, it's all right.' "'Still, it's your last night, so I suppose it won't matter much.' then bernice winced as marjorie tossed her own hair over her shoulders and began to twist it slowly into two long blond braids until in her cream-colored negligee she looked like a delicate painting of some saxon princess fascinated bernice watched the braids grow heavy and luminous they were moving under the supple fingers like restive snakes and bernice remained this relic and the curling iron and a to-morrow fall.

of eyes. She could see G. Reese stoddard, who liked her, assuming his Harvard manner, and telling his dinner partner that Bernice shouldn't have been allowed to go to the movies so much. She could see Dracott Deo exchanging glances with his mother and then being conscientiously charitable to her. But then, perhaps by to-morrow Mrs. Deo would have heard the news, would send round an icy little note requesting that she failed to appear. And behind her back they would all laugh and know that Marjorie had made a fool of her, that her chance at beauty had been sacrificed to the jealous whim of a selfish girl. She sat down suddenly before the mirror, biting the inside of her cheek. I like it, she said with an effort. I think it'll be becoming, Marjorie smiled. It looks all right.

For heaven's sake, don't let it worry you. I won't. Good night, Bernice. but as the door closed something snapped within bernice she sprang dynamically to her feet clenching her hands then swiftly and noiselessly crossed over to her bed and from underneath it dragged out her suitcase into it she tossed toilet articles and a change of clothing then she turned to her trunk and quickly dumped in two drawerfuls of lingerie and summer dresses she moved quietly but with deadly efficiency and in three-quarters of an hour her trunk her trunk and quickly dumped in two drawerfuls of lingerie and summer dresses she moved quietly but with deadly efficiency and in three-quarters of an hour her trunk was was locked and strapped and she was fully dressed in a becoming new travelling suit that Marjorie had helped her pick out. Sitting down at her desk she wrote a short note to Mrs. Harvey, in which she briefly outlined her reasons for going. She sealed it, addressed it, and laid it on her pillow. She glanced at her watch. The train left at one, and she knew that if she walked down to the Marlborough Hotel two blocks away, she could easily get a taxi cab. Suddenly she drew in her breath sharply, and an expression flashed into her eyes that a practiced

character reader might have connected vaguely with the set look she had worn in the barber's chair. Somehow a development of it. It was quite a new look for Bernice, and it carried consequences. She went stealthily to the bureau, picked up an article that lay there, and turning out all the lights, stood quietly until her eyes became accustomed to the darkness. softly she pushed open the door to Marjorie's room. She heard the quiet, even breathing of an untroubled conscience asleep.

She was by the bedside now, very deliberate and calm. She acted swiftly. Bending over, she found one of the braids of Marjorie's hair, followed it up with her hand to the point nearest the head, and then holding it a little slack so that the sleeper would feel no pull. She reached down with the shears, and severed it. With the pigtail in her hand she held her breath.

Marjorie had muttered something in her sleep. Bernice deftly amputated the other braid, paused for an instant, and then flitted swiftly and silently back to her own room. Downstairs, she opened the big front door, closed it carefully behind her, and feeling oddly happy and exuberant, stepped off the porch into the moonlight,

swinging her heavy grip like a shopping bag. After a minute's brisk walk, she discovered that her left hand still held the two blonde braids. She laughed unexpectedly, had to shut her mouth hard to keep from emitting an absolute peal. She was passing Warren's house now, and on the impulse she set down her baggage, and swinging the braids like pieces of rope,

flung them at the wooden porch, where they landed with a slight thud. She laughed again, no longer restraining herself. Ha! she giggled wildly. Skelp the selfish thing. Then, picking up her suitcase, she set off at a half run down the moonlit street. End of Section 5. Section 6 of Flappers and Philosophers by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Recording by M.B. Benediction. one the baltimore station was hot and crowded so lois was forced to stand by the telegraph desk for interminable sticky seconds while a clerk with big front teeth counted and recounted a large lady's day message to determine whether it contained the innocuous forty-nine words or the fatal fifty-one lois waiting decided she wasn't quite sure of the address so she took the letter out of her bag and ran over it again darling it began i understand and i'm happier than life ever meant me to be if i could give you the things you've always been in tune with but i can't lois we can't marry and we can't let all this glorious love end in nothing until your letter came dear i'd been sitting here in the half dark and thinking where i could go and ever forget you abroad perhaps to drift through italy or spain and dream away the pain of having lost you where the crumbling ruins of older mellower civilizations would mirror only the desolation of my heart and then your letter came sweetest bravest girl if you'll wire me i'll meet you in wilmington till then i'll be here just waiting and hoping for every long dream of you to come

come true. Howard. She had read the letter so many times that she knew it word by word, yet it still startled her. In it she found many faint reflections of the man who wrote it, the mingled sweetness and sadness in his dark eyes, the furtive, restless excitement she felt sometimes when he talked to her, his dreamy sensuousness that lulled her mind to sleep. Lois was nineteen and very romantic and curious and courageous. The large lady and the clerk, having compromised on fifty words, Lois took a blank and wrote her telegram, and there were no overtones to the finality of her decision. It's just destiny, she thought. It's just the way things work out in this damn world. If cowardice is all that's been holding me back, there won't be any more holding back. So we'll just let things

take their course and never be sorry. The clerk scanned her telegram. Arrived Baltimore today, spend day with my brother, meet me Wilmington 3 p.m. Wednesday. Love, Lois. Fifty-four cents, said the clerk admiringly. And never be sorry, thought Lois. And never be sorry, too. Trees filtering light onto dapple grass. Trees like tall, languid ladies with feather fans, coqueting airily with the ugly roof of the monastery.

Trees like butlers, bending courteously over placid walks and paths. Trees, trees over the hills on either side and scattering out in clumps and lines and woods, all through eastern Maryland, delicate lace on the hams of many yellow fields, dark, opaque backgrounds for flowered bushes, or wild climbing garden.

Some of the trees were very gay and young, but the monastery trees were older than the monastery, which, by true monastic standards, wasn't very old at all. And, as a matter of fact, it wasn't technically called a monastery, but only a seminary. Nevertheless, it shall be a monastery here,

despite its Victorian architecture or its Edward V. 7th editions, or even its Woodrow Wilsonian, patented last-a-century roofing. Out behind, was the farm where half a dozen lay brothers were sweating lustily as they moved with deadly efficiency around the vegetable gardens to the left behind a row of elms was an informal baseball diamond where three novices were being batted out by a fourth made great chasings and puffings and blowings and in front as a great mellow bell boomed the half hour a swarm of black human leaves were blown out over the checkerboard of paths under the courteous trees Some of these black leaves were very old, with cheeks furrowed like the first ripples of a splashed pool.

Then there was a scattering of middle-aged leaves, whose forms, when viewed in profile in their revealing gowns, were beginning to be faintly unsymmetrical. These carried thick volumes of Thomas Aquinas and Henry James and Cardinal Marcier and Immanuel Kant and many bulging notebooks filled with lecture data. but most numerous were the young leaves blonde boys of nineteen with very stern conscientious expressions men in the late twenties with a keen self-assurance from having taught out in the world for five years several hundreds of them from city and town and country in maryland and pennsylvania and virginia and west virginia and delaware there were many americans and some irish and some tough irish and a few french and several italian and poles, and they walked informally arm in arm with each other in twos and threes or in long rows, almost universally distinguished by the straight mouth and the considerable chin. For this was the Society of Jesus, founded in Spain five hundred years before by a tough-minded soldier who trained men to hold a breach or a salon, preach a sermon, or write a treaty,

and do it, and not argue. Lois got out of a bus, into the sunshine down by the utterword. her gate. She was nineteen with yellow hair and eyes that people were tactful enough not to call green. When men of talent saw her in a streetcar, they often furtively produced little stub pencils and backs of envelopes and tried to sum up that profile, or the thing that the eyebrows did to her eyes. Later they looked at their results and usually tore them up with wondering size. Though Lois was very jauntily attired in an expensively appropriate travelling affair, she did not linger to pat out the dust which covered her clothes, but started up the central walk with curious glances at either side.

Her face was very eager and expected, yet she hadn't at all that glorified expression that girls wear when they arrived for a senior prom at Princeton or New Haven. Still, as there were no senior proms here, perhaps it didn't matter. she was wondering what he would look like whether she'd possibly know him from his picture in the picture which hung over her mother's bureau at home he seemed very young and hollow-cheeked and rather pitiful with only a well-developed mouth and an ill-fitting probationer's gown to show that he had already made a momentous decision about his life of course he had been only nineteen then and now he was thirty-six it didn't look like that at all in recent snapshots he was much broader and his hair had grown a little thin but the impression of her brother she had always retained was that of the big picture and so she had always been a little sorry for him what a life for a man seventeen years of preparation and he wasn't even a priest yet wouldn't be for another year lois had an idea that this was all going to be rather solemn if she let it be but she was going to give her very best imitation of undiluted sunshine the imitation she could give even when her head was splitting or when her mother had a nervous

breakdown, or when she was particularly romantic and curious and courageous. This brother of hers undoubtedly needed cheering up, and he was going to be cheered up whether he liked it or not. As she drew near the great, homely front door, she saw a man break suddenly away from a group and, pulling up the skirts of his gown, run toward her. He was smiling, she noticed, and he looked very big and—and reliable. She stopped and waited, knew that her heart was beating unusually fast. Lois, he cried, and in a second she was in his arms. She was suddenly trembling.

Lois, he cried again. Why, this is wonderful. I can't tell you, Lois, how much I've been looking forward to this. Why, Lois, you're beautiful. Lois gasped. His voice, though restrained, was vibrant with energy and that odd sort of indeses. developing personality she had thought that she only of the family possessed. I'm mighty glad, too, Keith. She flushed, but not unhappily, at this first use of his name. Lois, Lois, Lois, he repeated in wonder. Child, we'll go in here a minute, because I want you to meet the rector,

and then we'll walk around. I have a thousand things to talk to you about. His voice became graver. How's mother? she looked at him for a moment and then said something that she had not intended to say at all the very sort of thing she had resolved to avoid oh keith she's-she's getting worse all the time every way he nodded slowly as if he understood nervous well you can tell me about that later now she was in a small study with a large desk saying something to a little jovial white-haired priest who retained her hand for some seconds so this is lois he said it as though he had heard of her for years he entreated her to sit down two other priests arrived enthusiastically and shook hands with her. her and addressed her as Keith's little sister which she found she didn't mind a bit.

How assured they seemed! She had expected a certain shyness, reserve at least. There were several jokes unintelligible to her which seemed to delight everyone, and the little father rector referred to the trio of them as dim old monks, which she appreciated because of course they weren't monks at all. She had a lightning impression that they were especially fond of Keith. The Father Rector called him Keith, and one of the others had kept a hand on his shoulder all through the conversation. Then she was shaking hands again and promising to come back a little later for some ice cream,

and smiling and smiling and being rather absurdly happy. She told herself that it was because Keith was so delighted in showing her off. Then she and Keith were strolling along a path arm in arm, and he was informing her what an absolute jewel the Father Rector was. lois he broke off suddenly i want to tell you before we go any farther how much it means to me to have you come up here i think it was mighty sweet of you i know what a gay time you've been having lois gasped she was not prepared for this at first when she had conceived the plan of taking the hot journey down to baltimore staying the night with a friend and then coming out to see her brother she had felt rather consciously virtuous hoped he wouldn't be priggish or resentful about her not having come before but walking with him under the trees seemed such a little thing and surprisingly a happy thing why keith she said quickly you know i couldn't have waited a day longer i saw you when i was five but of course i didn't remember and how could i have gone on without practically ever having seen my only brother it was mighty sweet of you lois he repeated lois blushed he did have personality

"'I want you to tell me all about yourself,' he said after a pause. "'Of course, I have a general idea what you and mother did in Europe those fourteen years. "'And then we were all so worried, Lois, when you had pneumonia and couldn't come down with mother. "'Let's see, that was two years ago. "'And then, well, I've seen your name in the papers, but it's all been so unsatisfactory. "'I haven't known you, Lois.' "'She found herself analysing his personality as she analyzed the personality, personality of every man she met.

She wondered if the effect of intimacy that he gave was bred by his constant repetition of her name. He said it as if he loved the word, as if it had an inherent meaning to him. Then you were at school, he continued. Yes, at Farmington. Mother wanted me to go to a convent, but I didn't want to.

She cast a side glance at him to see if he would resent this. But he only nodded. slowly. Had enough convents abroad, eh? Yes. And Keith, convents are so different there, anyway. Here, even in the nicest ones, there are so many common girls. He nodded again. Yes, he agreed, I suppose there are, and I know how you feel about it. It grated on me here at first, Lois, though I wouldn't say that to anyone but you. We're rather sensitive, you and I to things like this. you mean the men here yes some of them of course were fine the sort of men i'd always been thrown with but there were others a man named regan for instance i hated the fellow and now he's about the best friend i have

a wonderful character lois you'll meet him later sort of man he'd like to have with you in a fight lois was thinking that keith was the sort of man she'd like to have with her in a fight how did you-how did you first happen to do it she asked rather shyly to come here i mean of course mother told me the story about the polman car oh that he looked rather annoyed tell me that i'd like to hear you tell it oh it's nothing except what you probably know it was evening and i'd been riding all day and thinking about about a hundred things lois and then suddenly i had a sense that some one was sitting across from me felt that he'd been there for some time and had a vague idea that he was another traveler. All at once, he leaned over toward me, and I heard a voice say, I want you to be a priest, that's what I want. Well, I jumped up and cried out, oh my God, not that. Made an idiot of myself before about twenty people.

You see, there wasn't anyone sitting there at all. A week after that, I went to the Jesuit College in Philadelphia and crawled up the last flight of stairs to the rector's office, on my hands and knees. There was another silence, and Lois saw that her brother's eyes wore a far-away look, that he was staring unseeingly out over the sunny fields. She was stirred by the modulations of his voice and the sudden silence that seemed to flow about him when he finished speaking.

She noticed now that his eyes were of the same fibre as hers, with the green left out, and that his mouth was much gentler, really, than in the picture. Or was it that the face had grown up to it lately? he was getting a little bald just on top of his head she wondered if that was from wearing a hat so much it seemed awful for a man to grow bald and no one to care about it were you pious when you were young keith she asked you know what i mean were you religious if you don't mind these personal questions yes he said with his eyes still far away and she felt that his intense abstraction was as much a part of his personality as his attention Yes, I suppose I was when I was sober. Lois thrilled slightly. Did you drink?

He nodded. I was on the way to making a bad hash of things. He smiled and, turning his grey eyes on her, changed the subject. Child, tell me about Mother. I know it's been awfully hard for you there lately. I know you've had to sacrifice a lot and put up with a great deal. And I want you to know how fine of you I think it is. I feel, Lois, that you're sort of taking the place of both of us there.

Lois thought quickly how little she had sacrificed, how lately she had constantly avoided her nervous, half-invalid mother. Youth shouldn't be sacrificed to age, Keith, she said steadily. I know, he sighed, and you oughtn't to have the weight on your shoulders, child. I wish I were there to help you. she saw how quickly he had turned her remark and instantly she knew what this quality was that he gave off he was sweet her thoughts went off on a side track and then she broke the silence with an odd remark sweetness is hard she said suddenly what nothing she denied in confusion i didn't mean to speak aloud i was thinking of something of a conversation with a man named freddy kebbell morrie kebbell's brother yes she said rather surprised to think of him having known morey kebble still there was nothing strange about it

well he and i were talking about sweetness a few weeks ago oh i don't know i said that a man named howard that a man i knew was sweet and he didn't agree with me and we began talking about what sweetness in a man was he kept telling me i meant a sort of soppy softness but i knew i didn't yet i didn't know exactly how to put it i see now i meant just the opposite i suppose real sweetness is a sort of hardness and strength Keith nodded. I see what you mean. I've known old priests who had it. I'm talking about young men, she said, rather defiantly. They had reached the now deserted baseball diamond, and, pointing her to a wooden bench, he sprawled full length on the grass. Are these young men happy here, Keith?

Don't they look happy, laws? I suppose so. But those young ones, those two we just passed, have they, are they, are they signed up? He laughed. No, but they will be next month. Permanently? Yes, until they break down mentally or physically. Of course, in a discipline like ours, a lot drop out.

But those boys, are they giving up fine chances outside like you did? He nodded. Some of them. But, Keith, they don't know what they're doing. They haven't had any experience of what they're missing. No, I suppose not. It doesn't seem fair. Life has just sort of scared them at first.

Do they all come in so young? No, some of them have knocked around, but pretty wild lives. Regan, for instance. I should think that sort would be better, she said meditatively, men that have seen life. no said keith earnestly i'm not sure that knocking about gives a man the sort of experience he can communicate to others some of the broadest men i've known have been absolutely rigid about themselves and reformed libertines are a notoriously intolerant class don't you think so lois she nodded still meditative and he continued it seems to me that when one weak reason goes to another it isn't help they want it's a sort of companionship in guilt built, Lois. After you were born, when mother began to get nervous, she used to go and weep with a certain Mrs. Comstock.

Lord, it used to make me shiver. She said it comforted her, poor old mother. No, I don't think that to help others you've got to show yourself at all. Real help comes from a stronger person whom you respect, and their sympathy is all the bigger because it's impersonal. But people want human sympathy, objected Lois. they want to feel the other person's being tempted. Lois, in their hearts, they want to feel that the other person's being weak. That's what they mean by a human.

Here in this old monkery, Lois, he continued with a smile. They try to get all that self-pity and pride in our own wills out of us right at the first. They put us to scrubbing floors and other things. It's like that idea of saving your life by losing it. You see, we sort of feel that the less human a man is, in your sense of human, the better servant he can be to humanity. We carried it out to the end, too. When one of us dies, his family can't even have him then.

He's buried here under plain wooden cross with a thousand others. His tone changed suddenly, and he looked at her with a great brightness in his gray eyes. But way back in a man's heart, there are some things he can't get rid of, and one of them is that I'm awfully in love with my little sister. With a sudden impulse she knelt beside him in the grass, and, leaning over, kissed his forehead. "'You're hard, Keith,' she said, and I love you for it. And you're sweet. Three. Back in the reception room, Lois met a half-dozen more of Keith's particular friends. There was a young man named Jarvis, rather pale and delicate-looking.

Who she knew must be a grandson of old Mrs. Jarvis at home, and she mentally compared this ascetic with a brace of his riotous uncles. And there was Regan with a scarred face and piercing, intent eyes that followed her about the room, and often rested on Keith with something very like worship. She knew then what Keith had meant about, a good man to have with you in a fight. He's the missionary type, she thought vaguely. China or something. I want Keith's sister to show us what the shimmy is, demanded one young man with a broad grin.

lois laughed i'm afraid the father rector would send me shimmying out the gate besides i'm not an expert i'm sure it wouldn't be the best for jimmy's soul anyway said keith solemnly he's inclined to brood about things like shimmies They were just starting to do the mashishi, wasn't it, Jimmy? When he became a monk, and it haunted him his whole first year. You'd see him when he was peeling potatoes, putting his arm around the bucket, and making irreligious motions with his feet. There was a general laugh in which Lois joined. An old lady who comes here to Mass sent Keith this ice cream, whispered Jarvis under cover of the laugh,

because she'd heard you were coming. It's pretty good, isn't it? There were tears, trembling, in Lois's eyes. four then half an hour later in the chapel things suddenly went all wrong it was several years since lois had been at benediction and at first she was thrilled by the gleaming monstrance with its central spot of white the air rich and heavy with incense and the sun shining through the stained-glass window of st francis exasier overhead and falling in warm red tracery on the cassock of the man in front of her but at the first notes of the o salutaris hostia a heavy weight seemed to descend upon her soul keith was on her right and young jarvis on her left and she stole uneasy glances at both of them what's the matter with me she thought impatiently she looked again was there a certain coldness in both their profiles that she had not noticed before a pallor about the mouth and a curious set expression in their eyes she shivered slightly they were like dead men she felt her soul suddenly recede from keith's this was her brother this this unnatural

person. She caught herself in the act of a little laugh. What is the matter with me? She passed her hand over her eyes, and the weight increased. The incense sickened her, and a stray, ragged note from one of the tenors in the choir grated on her ear like the shriek of a slate pencil. She fidgeted it, and, raising her hand to her hair, touched her forehead, found moisture on it. It's hot in here.

What is the deuce? Again she repressed a faint laugh, and then, in an instant, the weight on her heart suddenly diffused into cold fear. It was that candle on the altar. It was all wrong. Wrong. Why didn't somebody see it? There was something in it.

There was something coming out of it, taking form and shape above it. She tried to fight down her rising panic, told herself it was the wick. If the wick wasn't straight, candles did something. But they didn't do this. With incalculable rapidity a force was gathering within her, a tremendous assimilative force, drawing from every sense, every corner of her brain, and as it surged up inside her, she felt an enormous, terrified repulsion. She drew her arms in close to her side away from Keith and Jarvis.

Something in that candle. She was leaning forward. In another moment she felt that she would go forward toward it. Didn't anyone see it? Anyone? Ugh. She felt a space beside her and something told her that Jarvis had gasped and sat down very suddenly. Then she was kneeling, and as the flaming monstrance slowly left the altar in the hands of the priest,

she heard a great rushing noise in her ears. The crash of the bells was like hammer blows, and then, in a moment of the moment of her, and then in a moment that seemed eternal, a great torrent rolled over her heart. There was a shouting there and a lashing as of waves. She was calling, felt herself calling for Keith, her lips mouthing the words that would not come. Keith! Oh my God! Keith!

Suddenly she became aware of a new presence. Something external in front of her, consummated and expressed in warm red tracery. then she knew it it was the window of st francis xavier her mind gripped at it clung to it finally and she felt herself calling again endlessly impotently keith keith then out of a great stillness came a voice blessed be god with a gradual rumble sounded the response rolling heavily through the chapel blessed be god-theirousanded the response rolling heavily through the chapel blessed be god the words sang instantly in her heart the incense lay mystically and sweetly peaceful upon the air and the candle on the altar went out blessed be his holy name blessed be his holy name everything blurred into a swinging mist with a sound half gasp half cry she rocked on her feet and reeled backward into keith's suddenly elsewhere outstretched arms.

Five. Lie still, child. She closed her eyes again. She was on the grass outside, pillowed on Keith's arm, and Regan was dabbing her head with a cold towel. I'm all right, she said quietly. I know, but just lie still a minute longer. It was too hard in there. Jarvis felt it, too.

She laughed as Regan again touched her gingerly with the table. towel. "'I'm all right,' she repeated. But though a warm peace was falling on her mind and heart, she felt oddly broken and chastened, as if someone had held her stripped soul up and laughed. Six. Half an hour later, she walked, leaning on Keith's arm down the long central path toward the gate. "'It's been such a short afternoon,' he sighed, and I'm so sorry you were sick, Lois. keith i'm feeling fine now really i wish you wouldn't worry poor old child i didn't realize that benediction would be a long service for you after your hot trip out here and all she laughed cheerfully i guess the truth is i'm not much use to benediction mass is the limit of my religious exertions she paused and then continued quickly i don't want to shock you keith but i can't tell you how-how how-how

"'inconvenient being a Catholic is. "'It really doesn't seem to apply any more. "'As far as morals go, some of the wildest boys I know are Catholics. "'And the brightest boys, I mean the ones who think and read a lot, "'don't seem to believe in much of anything anymore. "'Tell me about it. "'The bus won't be here for another half hour.' "'They sat down on a bench by the path.

"'For instance, Gerald Carter, he's published a novel. "'He absolutely roars when people mention immortality. And then how? Well, another man I've known well lately, who was Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard, it says that no intelligent person can believe in supernatural Christianity. He says Christ was a great socialist, though. Am I shocking you? She broke off suddenly. Keith smiled. You can't shock a monk. He's a professional shock absorber. Well, she continued, that's about all. It seems so so narrow church schools for instance there's more freedom about things that catholic people can't see like birth control keith winced almost imperceptively but lois saw it oh she said quickly everybody talks about everything now it's probably better that way oh yes much better well that's all keith i just wanted to tell you why i'm a little lukewarm at present

i'm not shocked lois i understand better than you think we all go through those times but i know it'll come out all right child there's that gift of faith that we have you and i that'll carry us past the bad spots he rose as he spoke and they started again down the path i want you to pray for me sometimes lois i think your prayers would be about what i need because we've come very close in these few hours i think her eyes were suddenly shining Oh, we have, we have, she cried. I feel closer to you now than to anyone in the world. He stopped suddenly and indicated the side of the path. We might, just a minute. It was a pietta, a life-sized statue of the Blessed Virgin sat within a semicircle of rocks. Feeling a little self-conscious, she dropped on her knees beside him and made an unsuccessful attempt at prayer.

She was only half through when he rose. He took her arm again. I wanted to thank her for letting us have this day together, he said simply. Lois felt a sudden lump in her throat, and she wanted to say something that would tell him how much it had meant to her too, but she found no words. I'll always remember this, he continued, his voice trembling a little, this summer day with you.

It's been just what I expected. You're just what I expected, Lois. I'm awfully glad, Keith. You see, when you were little, they kept sending me snapshots of you. First as a baby, and then as a child in socks playing on the beach with a pail and shovel, and then suddenly as a wistful little girl with wondering, pure eyes, and I used to build dreams about you. A man has to have something living to cling to.

I think, Lois, it was your little white soul I tried to keep not. me. Even when life was at its loudest, and every intellectual idea of God seemed the sheerest mockery, and desire and love, and a million things came up to me and said, Look here at me, see, I'm life, you're turning your back on it. All the way through that shadow, Lois, I could always see your baby soul flitting on ahead of me, very frail and clear and wonderful. Lois was crying softly. They had reached the gate. and she rested her elbow on it and dabbed furiously at her eyes and then later child when you were sick i knelt all one night and asked god to spare you for me for i knew then that i wanted more he had taught me to want more i wanted to know you moved and breathed in the same world with me i saw you growing up that white innocence of yours changing to a flame and burning to give light to other weaker souls

and then i wanted some day to take your children on my knee and hear them call the crabbed old monk uncle keith he seemed to be laughing now as he talked oh lois lois i was asking god for more then i wanted the letters you'd write me and the place I'd have at your table. I wanted an awful lot, Lois Deer. You've got me, Keith, she sobbed. You know it, say you know it. Oh, I'm acting like a baby, but I didn't think you'd be this way, and I'd... Oh, Keith, Keith! Keith! He took her hand and patted it softly. Here's the bus. You'll come again, won't you? She put her hands on his cheeks, and, drawing his head down, pressed her to... tear-wet face against his. Oh, Keith!

Brother, some day I'll tell you something. He helped her in, saw her take down her handkerchief, and smile bravely at him, as the driver kicked his whip and the bus rolled off. Then a thick cloud of dust rose around it, and she was gone. For a few minutes he stood there on the road, his hand on the gate-post, his lips half-parted in a smile. Lois, he said aloud in a sort of wonder. Lois,

Lois. Later, some probationer's passing, noticed him kneeling before the Pieta, and coming back after a time found him still there. And he was there until Twilight came down and the courteous trees grew garrulous overhead, and the crickets took up their burden of song in the dusky grass. Seven. The first clerk in this one, the telegraph booth in the Baltimore station whistled through his buck teeth at the second clerk.

Smatter! See that girl? No, the pretty one with the big black dots on her veil. Too late she's gone. You missed something. What about her? Nothing, except she's damn good-looking. Came in here yesterday and sent a wire to some guy to meet her somewhere.

Then a minute ago she came in with a telegram all written out and was standing there going to give it to me when she changed her mind or something. something and all of a sudden tore it up. Hmm. The first clerk came around the tile counter, and picking up the two pieces of paper from the floor, put them together idly. The second clerk read them over his shoulder

and subconsciously counted the words as he read. There were just thirteen. This is in the way of a permanent goodbye. I should suggest Italy. Lois, tore it up, eh? said the second clerk end of section six section seven of flappers and philosophers by f scod fitzgerald this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by m b dalyrimple goes wrong one in the millennium an educational genius will write a book to be given to every young man on the date of his disillusion this work will have the flavor of montaigne's essays in samuel butler's note-books and a little of tolstoy and marcus aurelius it will be neither cheerful nor pleasant but will contain numerous passages of striking humor

since first-class minds never believe anything very strongly until they've experienced it its value will be purely relative all people over thirty will refer to it as depressing this prelude belongs to the story of a young man who lived as you and i do before the book two the generation which numbered brian dalarimple drifted out of adolescence to a mighty fanfare of trumpets brian played the star in an affair which included a lewis gun and a nine-day romp behind the retreating german lines so luck triumphant or sentiment rampant awarded him a row of medals and on his arrival in the states he was told that he was second in importance only to general pershing and sergeant york this was a lot of fun the governor of his state a stray congressman and a citizens committee gave him enormous smiles and by god sirs on the deck at hobo There were newspaper reporters and photographers who said, Would you mind, and if you could just... And back in his hometown, there were old ladies, the rims of whose eyes grew red as they talked to him,

and girls who hadn't remembered him so well since his father's business went blah in 1912. But when the shouting died, he realized that for a month he had been the houseguest of the mayor, that he had only $14 in the world, and that the name that will live forever in the annals and love, legends of this state was already living there very quietly and obscurely. One morning he lay late in bed, and just outside his door he heard the upstairs maid talking to the cook.

The upstairs maid said that Mrs. Hawkins, the mayor's wife, had been trying for a week to hint Dalrymple out of the house. He laughed at eleven o'clock in intolerable confusion, asking that his trunk be sent to Mrs. Bebe's boarding house. Dalyrimple was 23 and he had never worked. His father had given him two years at the State University and passed away about the time of his son's nine-day romp, leaving behind him some mid-Victorian furniture and a thin packet of folded paper that turned out to be grocery bills. Young Dalyrimple had very keen grey eyes, a mind that delighted the army psychological examiners, a trick of having read it, whatever it was, some time before, and a cool hand in the hot situation. But these things did not save him,

a final, unresigned sigh when he realized that he had to go to work, right away. It was early afternoon when he walked into the office of Theron G. Macy, who owned the largest wholesale grocery house in town. Plump, prosperous, wearing a pleasant but quite unhumorous smile, Therun G. Macy greeted him warmly. Well, how do you do, Brian? What's on your mind? To Dalyrimple, straining with his admission, his own words when they came sounded like an Arab beggar's wine for alms. Why, this question of a job. This question of a job seemed somehow more clothed than just a job. A job?

An almost imperceptible breeze blew across Mr. Macy's expression. You see, Mr. Macy, continued Dallorimple, I feel I'm waiting. I'm wasting time. I want to get started at something. I had several chances about a month ago, but they all seemed to have gone. Let's see, interrupted Mr. Macy. What were they? Well, just at first the governor said something about a vacancy on his staff. I was sort of counting on that for a while, but I hear he's given it to Alan Gregg, you know, son of GP Greg. He sort of forgot what he said to me, and just talking, I guess.

you ought to push these things then there was that engineering expedition but they decided they'd have to have a man who knew hydraulics so they couldn't use me unless i paid my own way you had just a year at the university too but i didn't take any science or mathematics well the day the battalion paraded mr peter jordan said something about a vacancy in his store i went around there to-day and i found he meant a sort of floor walker and then you said something one day he paused and waited for the older man to take him up but noting only a minute wince continued about a position so i thought i'd come and see you well there was a position confessed mr macy reluctantly but since then we filled it he cleared his throat again you've waited quite a while yes i suppose i did everybody told me there was no hurry and-he cleared his throat again you've waited quite a while yes i suppose i did everybody told me there was no hurry and I'd had these various offers. Mr. Macy delivered a paragraph on present-day opportunities which Daly and Ripple's mind completely skipped. Have you had any business experience? I worked on a ranch two summers as a rider.

Oh, well, Mr. Macy disparaged this neatly and then continued, What do you think you're worth? I don't know. Well, Brian, I tell you, I'm willing to strain a point and give you a chance. Dalymrymple nodded. Your salary won't be much. You'll start by learning the stock. Then you'll come in the office for a while.

Then you'll go on the road. When could you begin? How about tomorrow? All right. Report to Mr. Hanson in the stock room. He'll start you off. He continued to regard Dalymerpple steadily until the latter, realizing that the interview was over,

rose awkwardly. Well, Mr. Macy, I'm certainly much of "'That's all right. Glad to help you, Brian.' After an irresolute moment, Daly Rimple found himself in the hall. His forehead was covered with perspiration, and the room had not been hot. "'Why the devil did I thank the son of a gun?' he muttered. "'Three. Next morning Mr. Hanson informed him coldly of the necessity of punching the time clock at seven every morning, and delivered him for instruction into the hands of a fellow worker, one, Charlie Moore. Charlie was twenty-six, with that faint musk of weakness hanging about him

that is often mistaken for the scent of evil. It took no psychological examiner to decide that he had drifted into indulgence and laziness as casually as he had drifted into life and was to drift out. He was pale, and his clothes stank of smoke. He enjoyed. He enjoyed. He enjoyed, and he had drifted into life. He He enjoyed burlesque shows, billiards, and Robert's service, and was always looking back upon his last intrigue or forward to his next one. In his youth his tasted run to loud ties, but now it seemed to have faded like his vitality, and was expressed in pale lilac foreign hands and indeterminate grey collars. Charlie was listlessly struggling that losing struggle against mental, moral, and physical

anemia that takes place ceaselessly on the lower fringe of the middle classes. The first morning he stretched himself on a row of cereal cartons and carefully went over the limitations of the Theron G. Macy Company. It's a Piker organization. My gosh, look at what they give me. I'm quitting in a couple of months. Hell, me stay with this bunch? The Charlie Moors are always going to change jobs next month. They do about once or twice in their careers. after which they sit around comparing their last job with the present one to the infinite disparagement of the latter what do you get asked dally ripple curiously me i get sixty this rather defiantly did you start at sixty me no i started at thirty five he told me he'd put me on the road after i learned the stock that's what he tells em all

how long have you been here asked dalyrimple with a sinking sensation me four years my last year too you bet your boots daly rimple rather resented the presence of the store detective as he resented the time clock and he came into contact with him almost immediately through the rule against smoking this rule was a thorn in his side he was accustomed to his three or four cigarettes in a morning and after three days without it, he followed Charlie Moore by a circuitous route up a flight of back stairs to a little balcony where they indulged in peace. But this was not for long. One day in his second week, the detective met him in a nook of the stairs on his descent, and told him sternly that the next time he'd be reported to Mr. Macy. Dalrymple felt like an errant schoolboy. Unpleasant facts came to his knowledge. There were cave-dwellers in the basement. who had worked there for ten or fifteen years at sixty dollars a month, rolling barrels and carrying boxes through damp cement-walled corridors, lost in that echoing half-darkness between seven and five-thirty, and, like himself, compelled several times a month to work until nine at night.

At the end of a month he stood in line and received forty dollars. He pawned a cigarette case and a pair of field-glasses and managed to live, to eat, sleep, and smoke. It was, however, a narrow scrape. As the ways and means of economy were a closed book to him, and the second month brought no increase, he voiced his alarm. If you've got a drag with old Macy, maybe he'll raise you, was Charlie's disheartening reply, but he didn't raise me till I'd been here nearly two years. I've got to live, said Daly Rimple simply.

I could get more pay as a labourer on the railroad, but, golly, I want to feel I'm where there's a chance to get ahead. Charles shook his head skeptically, and Mr. Macy's answer next day was equally unsatisfactory. Dallarimple had gone to the office just before closing time. Mr. Macy, I'd like to speak to you. Why, yes, the unhumorous smile appeared. The voice was faintly resentful. I want to speak to you in regard to more salary.

Mr. Macy nodded. well he said doubtfully i don't know exactly what you're doing i'll speak to mr hanson he knew exactly what dallyrimple was doing and dallyrimple knew he knew i'm in the stock room and sir while i'm here i'd like to ask you how much longer i'll have to stay there why i'm not sure exactly of course it takes time to learn the stock you told me two months when i started yes well i'll speak to mr hanson dalyrimple paused irresolute thank you sir two days later he again appeared in the office with the result of a count that had been asked for by mr hess the bookkeeper mr hess was engaged and dalyrimple waiting began idly fingering in a ledger on the stenographer's desk half unconsciously he turned a page he caught sight of his name it was a salary list dalyrimple demming donahoe everett his eyes stopped everett sixty dollars so tom everett's weak-chid nephew had started at sixty and in three weeks he had been out of the packing-room and into the office so that was it he was to sit and see man after man pushed over him sons cousins sons of friends irrespective of their capabilities while he was cast for a pawn with going on the road dangled before his eyes

put off with the stock remark i'll see i'll look into it at forty perhaps he would be a bookkeeper like old hess tired lifeless hess with a dull routine for his stint and a dull background of boarding-house conversation. This was a moment when a genie should have pressed into his hand the book for disillusioned young men. But the book has not been written. A great protest swelling into revolt surged up in him. Ideas half-forgotten, chaotically perceived and assimilated, filled his mind. Get on!

That was the rule of life, and that was all. How he did it didn't matter. But to be Hess or Charlie Moore. i won't he cried aloud the bookkeeper and the stenographers looked up in surprise what for a second dowleyrimple stared then he walked up to the desk here's that data he said brusquely i can't wait any longer mr hess's face expressed surprise it didn't matter what he did just so he got out of this rut in a dream he stepped from the elevator into the stock-room and walking to an unused aisle sat down on a box covering his face with his hands his brain was whirring with the frightful jar of discovering a platitude for himself i've got to get out of this he said aloud and then repeated i've got to get out and he didn't only mean out of macy's wholesale house when he left at five-thirty it was pouring rain but he struck off in the opposite direction from his boarding-house feeling in the first cool moisture that oozed sogly through his old suit an odd exultation and freshness he wanted a world that was like walking through rain even though he could not see far ahead of him but fate had put him in the world of mr macy's fetid store-rooms and corridors

at first merely the overwhelming need of change took him then half plans began to formulate in his imagination i'll go east to a big city meet people bigger people people who'll help me interesting work somewhere my god there must be with sickening truth it occurred to him that his facility for meeting people was limited of all places it was here in his own town that he should be known was known famous before the water of oblivion had rolled over him he had to cut corners that was all pull relationship wealthy marriages for several miles the continued reiteration of this preoccupied him and then he perceived that the rain had become thicker and more opaque in the heavy gray of twilight and that the houses were falling away the district of full blocks then of big houses then of scattering little ones passed and great sweeps of misty country opened out on both sides it was hard walking here the sidewalk had given place to a dirt road streaked with furious brown rivulets that splashed and squashed around his shoes cutting corners the words began to fall apart forming curious phrasings little illuminated pieces of themselves they resolved into sentences each of which had a strangely familiar ring cutting corners meant rejecting the old childhood principles that success came from faithfulness to duty that evil was necessarily punished or virtue necessarily rewarded that honest poverty was happier than corrupt riches it meant being hard this phrase appealed to him and he repeated it over and over it had to do somehow with mr macy and charley moore the attitudes the methods of each of them

he stopped and felt his clothes he was drenched to the skin he looked about him and selecting a place in the fence where a tree sheltered it perched himself there in my credulous years he thought they told me that evil was a sort of dirty hue just as definite as a soiled collar but it seems to me that evil is only a matter of hard luck or heredity in environment or being found out it hides in the vacillations of dubs like charlie moore as certainly as it does in the intolerance of macy and if it ever gets much more tangible it becomes merely an arbitrary label to paste on the unpleasant things in other people's lives in fact he concluded it isn't worth worrying over what's evil and what isn't good and evil aren't any standard to me and they can be a devil of a bad hindrance when i want something when i want something bad enough common sense tells me to go and take it and not get caught and then suddenly d'allinople knew what he wanted first he wanted fifteen dollars to pay his overdue board bill with a furious energy he jumped from the fence he jumped from the fence whipped off his coat, and from its black lining cut with his knife a piece about five inches square. He made two holes near its edge, and then fixed it on his face, pulling his hat down to hold it in place. It flapped grotesquely, and then dampened and clung to his forehead and cheeks.

Now the twilight had merged to dripping dusk, black as pitch. He began to walk quickly toward town, not waiting to remove them. mask, but watching the road with difficulty through the jagged eye-holes. He was not conscious of any nervousness. The only tension was caused by a desire to do the thing as soon as possible. He reached the first sidewalk, continued on until he saw a hedge far from any lamp-post, and turned in behind it. Within a minute he heard several series of footsteps.

He waited. It was a woman, and he held his breath until she passed, and then a man, a laborer. The next passer, he felt, would be what he wanted. The laborer's footfalls died far up the drenched street. Other steps grew near, grew suddenly louder. Daly Ripple braced himself. Put up your hands!

The man stopped, uttered an absurd little grunt, and thrust pudgy arms skyward. Delirmpel went through the waistcoat. Now you shrewd. "'Scrimp,' he said, setting his hand suggestively to his own hip pocket, "'you run and stamp loud. If I hear your feet stop, I'll put a shot after you.' Then he stood there in sudden uncontrollable laughter, as audibly frightened footsteps scurried away into the night. After a moment, he thrust the roll of bills into his pocket,

snatched off his mask, and running quickly across the street, darted down an alley. Four. Yet, however Daly Rimple justified himself intellectually, he had many bad moments in the weeks immediately following his decision. The tremendous pressure of sentiment and inherited ambition kept raising riot with his attitude. He felt morally lonely. The noon after his first venture he ate in a little lunchroom with Charlie Moore, and, watching him unsread the paper, waited for a remark about the hold-up of a moment.

the day before. But either the hold-up was not mentioned or Charlie wasn't interested. He turned listlessly to the sporting sheet, read Dr. Crane's crop of seasoned bromides, took in an editorial on ambition with his mouth slightly ajar, and then skipped to mutton Jeff. Poor Charlie, with his faint aura of evil and his mind that refused to focus, playing a lifeless solitaire with cast-off mischief. Yet Charlie belonged on the other side of the fence. In him could be stirred up all the flamings and denunciations of righteousness. He could weep at a stage heroine's lost virtue.

He could become lofty and contemptuous at the idea of dishonor. On my side, thought Dallin Ripple, there aren't any resting places. A man who's as strong criminal is after the weak criminals as well, so it's all guerrilla warfare over here. What will it all do to me, he thought with a persistent weariness? Will it take the color out of life with the honor? Will it scatter my courage and dull my mind? De-spiritualize me completely.

Does it mean eventual barrenness, eventual remorse, failure? With a great surge of anger he would fling his mind upon the barrier and stand there with the flashing bayonet of his pride. Other men who broke the laws of justice and charity lied to all the world. He, at any rate, would not lie to himself. He was more than byronic now. Not the spiritual rebel Don Juan, not the philosophical rebel Faust, but a new psychological rebel of his own century,

defying the sentimental a priori forms of his own mind. Happiness was what he wanted, a slowly rising scale of gratifications of the normal appetites, and he had a strong conviction that the materials, if not the inspiration of happiness, could be bought with money. Five. The night came that drew him out upon his second venture, and as he walked the dark street he felt in himself a great resemblance to a cat,

a certain supple, swinging lithness. His muscles were rippling smoothly and sleekly under his spare, healthy flesh. He had an absurd desire to bound along the street, to run dodging among the trees to turn cartwheels over soft grass it was not crisp but in the air lay a faint suggestion of acerbity inspirational rather than chilling the moon is down i have not heard the clock he laughed in delight at the line which an earlier memory had endowed with a hushed awesome beauty he passed a man and then another quarter of a mile afterward He was on Fillmore Street now, and it was very dark. He blessed the city council for not having put in new lampposts as a recent budget had recommended. Here was the red-brick-stirner residence which marked the beginning of the avenue.

Here was the Jordan House, the Eisenhower's, the Dent's, the Markham's, the Frasers, the Hawkins, where he had been a guest, the Willoughby's, the Everett's, colonial and ornate, the little cottage where lived the Wattes, old maids, between the imposing fronts of the Macy's and the Kruppstats, the Krags, ah, there! He paused, wavered violently. Far up the street was a blot, a man walking, possibly a policeman. After an eternal second he found himself following the vague, ragged shadow of a lamp-post, across a lawn running bent very low.

Then he was standing tense, without breath or need of it, in the shadow of his limestone prey. Interminably he listened. A mile off, a cat howled. A hundred yards away another took up the hymn in a demoniacal snarl, and he felt his heart dip and swoop, acting as a shock absorber for his mind. There were other sounds. The faintest fragment of song far away.

Strident, gasping laughter from a back porch diagonally across the alley, and crickets, crickets singing in the patched, patterned, moonlit grass of the yard. Within the house there seemed to lie an ominous silence. He was glad he did not know who lived here. His slight shiver hardened to steel. The steel softened and his nerves became pliable as leather. Gripping his hands, he gratefully found them supple, and taking out knife and pliers he went to work on the screen.

So sure was he. that he was unobserved, that, from the dining-room where in a minute he found himself, he leaned out and carefully pulled the screen up into position, balancing it so it would neither fall by chance, nor be a serious obstacle to a sudden exit. Then he put the open knife in his coat-pocket, took out his pocket-flash, and tiptoed around the room. There was nothing here he could use. The dining-room had never been included in his plans, for the town was too small to permit

disposing of silver. As a matter of fact, his plans were of the vaguest. He had found that with a mind like his, lucrative in intelligence, intuition, and lightning decision, it was best to have but the skeleton of a campaign. The machine-gun episode had taught him that, and he was afraid that a method preconceived would give him two points of view in a crisis, and two points of view meant wavering. He stumbled slightly on a chair, held his breath, listened, went on, found the hall, found the stairs, started up. The seventh stair creaked in his step, the ninth, the fourteenth. He was counting them automatically.

At the third creek he paused again for over a minute, and in that minute he felt more alone than he had ever felt before. Between the lines on patrol, even when alone, he had behind him the moral support of half a billion people. Now he was alone, pitted against that same moral pressure, A bandit! He had never felt this fear, yet he had never felt this exultation. The stairs came to an end, a doorway approached.

He went in and listened to regular breathing. His feet were economical of steps, and his body swayed sometimes at stretching as he felt over the bureau, pocketing all articles which held promise. He could not have enumerated them ten seconds afterward. He felt on a chair for possible trousers, found some sort of a chair. soft garments, woman's lingerie. The corners of his mouth smiled mechanically. Another room? The same breathing, enlivened by one ghastly snort that sent his heart again on its tour of his breast. Round object. Watch. Chain, roll of bills, stick pins, two rings. He remembered

that he had got rings from the other bureau. He started out, winced as a faint glow flashed in front of him, facing him. God! It was the glow of his own wristwatch on his outstretched arm. Down the stairs. He skipped two crumbling steps, but found another. He was all right now, practically safe. As he neared the bottom, he felt a slight boredom. He reached the dining-room, considered the silver, again decided against it. Back at his room at the boarding-house, he examined the additions to his personal property. Sixty-five dollars in bills. A platinum-recent-dollar.

ring with three medium diamonds worth probably about $700. Diamonds were going up. A cheap gold-plated ring with the initials OS and the date inside. O-3. Probably a class ring from school, worth a few dollars, unsaleable. A red cloth case containing a set of false teeth. A silver watch. A gold chain worth more than the watch.

An empty ring box. A little ivory chaste. Chinese god, probably a desk ornament. A dollar and sixty-two cents in small change. He put the money under his pillow and the other things in the toe of an infantry boot, stuffing a stocking in on top of them. Then for two hours his mind raced like a high-power engine here and there through his life, past and future, through fear and laughter. With a vague, inopportune wish that he were married, he fell into a deep sleep about half-past five. six though the newspaper account of the burglary failed to mention the false teeth they worried him considerably the picture of a human waking in the cool dawn and groping for them in vain

of a soft toothless breakfast of a strange hollow lisping voice calling the police station of weary dispirited visits to the dentist roused a great fatherly pity in him trying to ascertain whether they belonged to a man or a woman he took them carefully out of the case and held them up near his mouth he moved his own jaws experimentally he measured with his fingers but he failed to decide they might belong either to a large-mouthed woman or a small-mouthed man on a warm impulse he wrapped them in brown paper from the bottom of his army trunk and printed false teeth on the package and clumsy pencil letters then the next night he walked down philmore street and shied the package into the lawn so that it would be near the door next day the paper announced that the police had a clue they knew that the burglar was in town however they didn't mention what the clue was seven at the end of the month burglar bill of the silver district was the nurse-girls stand-by for frightening children five burglaries were attributed to him but though dallyrimple had only committed three he considered that the majority had it and appropriated the title to himself he had once been seen a large bloated creature with the meanest face you ever laid eyes on mrs henry coleman awaking at two o'clock at the beam of an electric torrid flashed in her eye, could not have been expected to recognize Brian Dalarimple, at whom she had waved flags last Fourth of July, and whom she had described as not at all the daredevil type,

do you think? When Dallarimple kept his imagination at white heat, he managed to glorify his own attitude, his emancipation from petty scruples and remorces. But let him once allow his thought to rove unarmored. Great unexpected horrors and depressions would overtake him. then for reassurance he had to go back to think out the whole thing over again he found that it was on the whole better to give up considering himself as a rebel it was more consoling to think of everyone else as a fool his attitude toward mr macy underwent a change he no longer felt a dim animosity and inferiority in his presence as his fourth month in the store ended he found himself regarding his employer in a manner that was almost fraternal he had a vague but very assured conviction that mr macy's innermost soul would have abetted and approved he no longer worried about his future he had the intention of accumulating several thousand dollars and then clearing out going east back to france down to south america

half a dozen times in the last two months he had been about to stop work but a fear of attracting attention to his being in funds prevented him so he worked on no longer in listlessness but with contemptuous amusement eight then with astounding suddenness something happened that changed his plans and put an end to his burglaries mr macy sent for him one afternoon and with a great show of jovial mystery asked him if he had an engagement that night if he hadn't would he please call on mr alfred j fraser at eight o'clock d'alrymple's wonder was mingled with uncertainty he debated with himself whether it was not his cue to take the first train out of town but an hour's consideration decided him that his fears were unfounded and at eight o'clock he arrived at the big fraser house in philmore avenue Mr. Fraser was commonly supposed to be the biggest political influence in the city. His brother was Senator Fraser. His son-in-law was Congressman Denning, and his influence, though not wielded in such a way as to make him an objectionable boss,

was strong nevertheless. He had a great, huge face, deep-set eyes and a barn door of an upper lip, the melange approaching a worthy climax in a long, professional jaw. During his conversation with Dalarimple, his expression kept starting toward a smile, reached a cheerful optimism, and then receded back down to imperturbability. "'How do you do, sir?' he said, holding out his hand. "'Sit down. I suppose you're wondering why I wanted you. Sit down.'

Dallin Ripple sat down. "'Mr. Dalymple, how old are you?' "'I'm twenty-three.' "'You're young.' But that doesn't mean you're foolish. Mr. Dalyrimple, what I've got to say won't take long. I'm going to make you a proposition. To begin at the beginning, I've been watching you ever since last Fourth of July

when you made that speech in response to the Loving Cup. Dalyrimple murmured disparagingly, but Fraser waved him to silence. It was a speech I've remembered. It was a brainy speech, straight from the shoulder, and it got to everybody in that crowd. I know, I've watched crowds for years. He cleared his throat as a bit. if tempted to digress on his knowledge of crowds, then continued. "'But, Mr. Dalarimple, I've seen too many young men who promised brilliantly go to pieces,

fail through want of steadiness, too many high-power ideas, and not enough willingness to work. So I waited. I waited to see what you'd do. I waited to see if you'd go to work, and if you'd stick to what you started.' Dallimple felt the glow settle over him. so continued fraser when theran macy told me you'd started down at his place i kept watching you and i followed your record through him the first month i was afraid for a while he told me you were getting restless too good for your job hinting around for a raise dally ripple started but he said after that you evidently made up your mind to shut up and stick to it that's the stuff i like in a young man that's the stuff that wins out and don't think i don't understand i know how much harder it was was for you after all that silly flattery a lot of old women had been giving you. I know what a fight it must have been. Dalerimple's face was burning brightly.

It felt young and strangely ingenuous. Daly Ripple, you've got brains and you've got the stuff in you. And that's what I want. I'm going to put you into the state senate. The what? The state senate. We want a young man who's got brains, but is solid and not a loafer. and when I say State Senate, I don't stop there.

We're up against it here, Daly Rimple. We've got to get some young men into politics. You know the old blood that's been running on the party ticket year in and year out. Daly Ripple licked his lips. You'll run me for the state senate? I'll put you in the state senate. Mr. Fraser's expression had now reached the point nearest a smile, and Dalymerpil in a happy frivolity felt himself urging it mentally on.

but it stopped, locked, and slid from him. The barn door and the jaw were separated by a line straight as a nail. Dalyrimple remembered with an effort that it was a mouth and talked to it. But I'm through, he said. My notoriety's dead. People are fed up with me. Those things, answered Mr. Fraser, are mechanical. Linotype is a resuscitator of reputations.

Wait till you see the herald, beginning next week. That is, if you're with us. That is, and his voice hardened slightly, if you haven't got too many ideas yourself about how things ought to be run. No, said Daly Rimple, looking him frankly in the eye. You'll have to give me a lot of advice at first. Very well, I'll take care of your reputation, then. Just keep yourself on the right side of the fence. Dally Ripple started at this repetition of a phrase he had thought of so much lately. There was a sudden ring at the doorbell. that's macy now observed fraser rising i'll go let him in the servants have gone to bed he left dally ripple there in a dream the world was opening up suddenly the state senate the united states senate

so life was this after all cutting corners common sense that was the rule no more foolish risks now and less necessity called but it was being hard that counted never to let remorse or self-reproach lose him a night's sleep let his life be a sword of courage there was no payment all that was drivel drivel he sprang to his feet with clinched hands in his sort of triumph well brian said mr macy's stepping through the portiers. The two older men smiled their half-smiles at him. "'Well, Brian,' said Mr. Macy again. Dalyrimple smiled also. "'How do, Mr. Macy?' He wondered if some telepathy between them had made this new appreciation possible, some invisible

realization. Mr. Macy held out his hand. "'I'm glad we're to be associated in this scheme. I've been for you all along, especially lately. I'm glad we're to be on the same side of the fence. I want to thank you, sir, said Dalyrimple simply. He felt a whimsical moisture gathering back of his eyes. End of Section 7.

Section 8 of Flappers and Philosophers by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This Librevox recording is in the public domain, recording by M.B. the four fists one at the present time no one i know has the slightest desire to hit samuel meredith possibly this is because a man over fifty is liable to be rather severely cracked at the impact of a hostile fist but for my part i am inclined to think that all his hitable qualities have quite vanished but it is certain that at various times in his life hittable qualities were in his face, as surely as kissable qualities have ever looked in the girl's lips. I'm sure everyone has met a man like that, been casually introduced, even made a friend of him, yet felt he was the sort who aroused passionate dislike, expressed by some in the involuntary clenching of fists and in others by mutterings about taking a poke and land in a swift smash

in the eye. In the juxtaposition of Samuel Meredith's features, this quality was so strong, that it influenced his entire life. What was it? Not the shape, certainly, for he was a pleasant-looking man from earliest youth, broad-browed with grey eyes that were frank and friendly. Yet I've heard him tell a room full of reporters angling for a success story that he'd be ashamed to tell them the truth,

that they wouldn't believe it, that it wasn't one story but four, that the public would not want to read about a man who had been walloped into prominence. It all started at Phillips Andover Academy when he was 14. He had been brought up on a diet of caviar and bellboy's legs in half the capitals of Europe, and it was pure luck that his mother had nervous prostration and had to delegate his education to less tender, less biased hands. At Andover he was given a roommate named Gilly Hood. Gilly was 13, undersized, and rather the school pet. from the september day when mr meredith's valet stowed samuel's clothing in the best bureau and asked on departing if there was anything else master samuel

Gilly cried out that the faculty had played him false. He felt like an irate frog in whose bowl has been put goldfish. Good gosh, he complained to his sympathetic contemporaries. He's a damn stuck-up, Willie. He said, are the crowd here, gentlemen? And I said, no, they're boys. And he said age didn't matter. And I said, who said it did?

Let him get fresh with me, the old pie face. For three weeks, Gilly endured in silence young Samuel's comments on the clothes and habits of Gilly's personal friends, endured French phrases in conversation, endured a hundred half-feminine meannesses that show what a nervous mother can do to a boy if she keeps close enough to him. Then a storm broke in the aquarium. Samuel was out. A crowd had gathered to hear Gilly be wrathful about his roommate's latest sins. "'He said, "'Oh, I don't like the windows open at night.' "'He said, except only a little bit,' complained Gilly.

"'Oh, don't let him boss you. "'Boss me, you bet he won't. "'I open those windows, I guess, "'but the darn fool won't take turns shutting him in the morning. "'Make him, Gilly, why don't you?' "'I'm going to,' Gilly nodded his head in fierce agreement. "'Don't you worry. "'You didn't think I'm any old,

Butler. Let's see you make him. At this point the darn fool entered in person and included the crowd in one of his irritating smiles. Two boys said, lo, Meredith. The others gave him a chilly glance and went on talking to Gilly, but Samuel seemed unsatisfied. Would you mind not sitting on my bed, he suggested politely to two of Gilly's particulars who were perched very much at ease. Huh?

My bed, can't you understand English? This was adding insult to injury. There were several comments on the bed's sanitary condition and the evidence within it of animal life. "'This matter with your old bed?' demanded Gilly truculently. "'Oh, the bed's all right, but—' Gilly interrupted this sentence by rising and walking up to Samuel. He paused, several inches away, and eyed him fiercely.

"'You and your crazy old bed,' he began. "'You and your crazy!' "'Go to it, Gilly,' murmured someone. "'Show the darn fool!' Samuel returned the gaze coolly. "'Well,' he said finally, "'it's my bed.' He got no further, for Gilly hold off and hit him succinctly in the nose.

"'Yeah, Gilly!' "'Show the big bully. Just let him touch you. He'll see.' The group closed in on them, and for the first time in his life, Samuel realized the insuperable inconvenience of being passionately detested. He gazed around helplessly at the glowering, violently hostile faces. He towered a head taller than his roommate, so if he hit back he'd be called a bully and have half a dozen more fights on his hands within five minutes. Yet if he didn't, he was a coward. For a moment he stood there, facing Gillies's blazing eyes, and then, with a sudden choking

sound, he forced his way through the ring and rushed from the room. The month following bracketed the thirty most miserable days of his life. Every waking moment he was under the lashing tongues of his contemporaries. His habits and mannerisms became butts for intolerable witticisms, and, of course, the sensitiveness of adolescence was a further thorn. He considered that he was a natural pariah, that the unpopularity at school would follow him through life. When he went home for the Christmas holidays,

he was so despondent that his father sent him to a nerve specialist. When he returned to Andover, he arranged to arrive late so that he could be alone in the bus during the drive from station to school. Of course, when he had learned to keep his mouth shut, everyone promptly forgot all about him the next autumn with his realization that consideration for others was the discreet attitude he made good use of the clean start given him by the shortness of boyhood memory by the beginning of his senior year samuel meredith was one of the best-liked boys of his class and no one was stronger for him than his first friend and constant companion gilly hood two samuel became the sort of college student who in the early nineties drove tammoms and coaches and tally-hose between princeton and yale and new york city to show that they appreciated the social importance of football games he believed passionately in good form his choosing of gloves his tying of ties his holding of reins were imitated by impressionable freshmen outside of his own set he was considered rather a snob but as his set was the set it never worried

him. He played football in the autumn, drank high balls in the winter, and rode in the spring. Samuel despised all those who were merely sportsmen without being gentlemen, or merely gentlemen, without being sportsmen. He lived in New York, and often brought home several of his friends for the weekend. Those were the days of the horse car, and in case of a crush, it was, of course, the proper thing, for anyone of Samuel set to rise and deliver his seat to a standing lady with a formal bow. one night in samuel's junior year he boarded a car with two of his intimates there were three vacant seats when samuel sat down he noticed a heavy-eyed laboring man sitting next to him who smelt objectionably of garlic slagged slightly against samuel and spreading a little as a tired man will took up quite too much room the car had gone several blocks when it stopped for a quartet of young girls and of course the three men of the world sprang to their feet and proffered their seats with few observance of form

unfortunately the labourer being unacquainted with the code of neckties and tally-hose failed to follow their example and one young lady was left at an embarrassed stance fourteen eyes glared reproachfully at the barbarian seven lips curled slightly but the object of scorn stared stolidly into the foreground in sturdy unconsciousness of his despicable conduct samuel was the most violently affected he was humiliated that any male should so conduct himself he spoke aloud there's a lady's standing he said sternly that should have been quite enough but the object of scorn only looked up blankly the standing girl tittered and exchanged nervous glances with her. her companions. But Samuel was aroused. There's a lady standing, he repeated rather raspingly. The man seemed to comprehend. I pay my fare, he said quietly. Samuel turned red, and his hands clinched, but the conductor was looking their way,

so at a warning nod from his friends he subsided into sullen gloom. They reached their destination and left the car, but so did the laborer who followed them, swinging his little pail. Seeing his chance, Samuel no longer resisted his aristocratic inclination. He turned round and, launching a full-featured dime-novel sneer, made a loud remark about the right of the lower animals to ride with human beings. In a half-second the workman had dropped his pail and let fly at him. Unprepared, Samuel took the blow neatly on the jaw and sprawled full length into the cobblestone

gutter. Don't laugh at me, cried his assailant. I've been working all day. I'm tired as hell. As he spoke, the sudden anger died out of his eyes, and the mask of weariness dropped again over his face. He turned and picked up the pale. Samuel's friends took a quick step in his direction. Wait! Samuel had risen slowly and was motioning back. Sometimes, somewhere he had been struck like that before. Then he remembered, Gilly Hood. In the silence as he dusted himself off, the whole scene in the room at Andover was before his eyes, and he knew intuitively that he had been wrong again. This man's strength, his rest, was the protection of his family. He had more use for his seat in the streetcar than any young girl.

"'It's all right,' said Samuel gruffly. "'Don't touch him. I've been a damn fool.' Of course it took more than an hour or a week for Samuel to rearrange his ideas on the essential importance of good form. At first he simply admitted that his wrongness had made him powerless, as it had made him powerless against Gilly, but eventually his mistake about the workmen influenced his entire attitude. Snobbishness is, after all, merely good-breeding-grown dictatorial. So Samuel's code remained, but the necessity of imposing it upon others had faded out, in a certain gutter.

Within that year, his class had somehow stopped referring to him as a snob. Three. After a few years, Samuel's University decided that it had shone long enough in the reflected glory of his neckties, so they declaimed to him in Latin, charged him ten dollars for the paper which proved him irretrievably educated, and sent him into the turmoil with much self-confidence of few friends and the proper assortment of harmless bad habits. His family had by that time... started back to shirt-sleeves through a sudden decline in the sugar market, and it had already

unbuttoned its vest, so to speak, when Samuel went to work. His mind was that exquisite tabula rasa that a university education sometimes leaves, but he had both energy and influence, so he used his former ability as a dodging half-back in twisting through Wall Street crowds as a runner for a bank. His diversion was, women. There were half a dozen. two or three debutantes and actress in a minor way a grass widow and one sentimental little brunette who was married and lived in a little house in jersey city they had met on a ferry boat samuel was crossing from new york on business he had been working several years by this time and he helped her look for a package that she had dropped in the crush do you come here often he inquired casually just a shop she said shyly she had great brown eyes and the pathetic kind of little mouth i've only been married three months and we find it cheaper to live over here does he does your husband like being alone like this she laughed a cheery young laugh oh dear me no we were to meet for dinner but i must have misunderstood the place he'll be awfully worried

well said samuel disapprovingly he ought to be if you'll allow me i'll see you home she accepted his offer thankfully so they took the cable car together when they walked up the path to her little house they saw a light there her husband had arrived before her he's frightfully jealous she announced laughingly apologetic very well answered samuel rather stiffly i'd better leave you here she thanked him and waving a good night he left her that would have been quite all if they hadn't met on fifth avenue one morning a week later she started and blushed and seemed so glad to see him that they chatted like old friends she was going to her dressmakers eat lunch alone at tains, shop all afternoon, and meet her husband on the ferry at five. Samuel told her that her husband was a very lucky man. She blushed again and scurried off. Samuel whistled all the way back to his office, but about twelve o'clock he began to see that pathetic, appealing little mouth everywhere, and those brown eyes.

He fidgeted when he looked at the clock. He thought of the grill downstairs where he lunched and the heavy male conversation thereof, and opposed to that picture appeared another, a little table at tains with the brown eyes and the mouth a few feet away. A few minutes before twelve-thirty he dashed on his hat and rushed for the cable car. She was quite surprised to see him. Why, hello, she said. Samuel could tell that she was just pleasantly frightened. I thought we might lunch together.

It's so dull eating with a lot of men. She hesitated. why i suppose there's no harm in it how could there be it occurred to her that her husband should have taken lunch with her but he was generally so hurried at noon she told samuel all about him he was a little smaller than samuel but oh much better looking he was a bookkeeper and not making a lot of money but they were very happy and expected to be rich within three or four years samuel's grass widow had been in a quarrelsome mood for three years samuel's grass widow had been in a quarrelsome mood for three or four weeks and through contrast he took an accentuated pleasure in this meeting so fresh was she and earnest and faintly adventurous her name was margery they made another engagement in fact for a month they lunched together two or three times a week when she was sure that her husband would work late samuel took her over to new jersey on the ferry leaving her always on the tiny front porch after she had gone in and lit the gas to use the security of his masculine presence outside this grew to be a ceremony and it annoyed him whenever the comfortable glow fell out through the front windows that was his Canget. Yet he never suggested coming in, and Marjorie didn't invite him.

Then, when Samuel and Marjorie had reached a stage in which they sometimes touched each other's arms gently, just to show that they were very good friends, Marjorie and her husband had one of those ultra-sensitive supercritical quarrels that couples never indulge in unless they care a great deal about each other. It started with a cold mutton chop or a leak in the gas jet, and one of day Samuel found her in tains with dark shadows under her brown eyes and a terrifying pout. By this time Samuel thought he was in love with Marjorie, so he played up the quarrel for all it was worth. He was her best friend and patted her hand and leaned down close to her brown curls while she whispered in little sobs what her husband had said that morning, and he was

a little more than her best friend when he took her over to the fairy in a handsome. him. Marjorie, he said gently when he left her as usual on the porch. If at any time you want to call on me, remember that I'm always waiting. Always waiting. She nodded gravely and put both her hands in his. I know, she said. I know you're my friend.

My best friend. Then she ran into the house and he watched there until the gas went on. For the next week Samuel was in a nervous turmoil. Some persistently rational strain warned him that at bottom he and Marjorie had little in common, but in such cases there is usually so much mud in the water that one can seldom see to the bottom. Every dream and desire told him that he loved Marjorie, wanted her, had to have her. The quarrel developed. Marjorie's husband took the staying in New York until late at night, came home several times

disagreeably overstimulated, and made her generally miserable. They must have had too much pride to talk it out, for Marjorie's husband was, after all, pretty decent. So it drifted on from one misunderstanding to another. Marjorie kept coming more and more to Samuel. When a woman can accept masculine sympathy, it is much more satisfactory to her than crying to another girl. But Marjorie didn't realize how much she had begun to rely on him, how much he was part of

her little cosmos. One night, instead of turning away when Marjorie went in and lit the gas, Samuel went in too, and they sat together on the sofa in the little parlor. He was very happy. He envied their home, and he felt that the man who neglected such a possession out of stubborn pride was a fool and unworthy of his wife. But when he kissed Marjorie for the first time, she cried softly and told him to go. He sailed home on the wings of desperate excitement.

quite resolved to fan this spark of romance no matter how big the blaze or who was burned at the time he considered that his thoughts were unselfishly of her in a later perspective he knew that she had meant no more than the white screen and a motion picture it was just samuel blind desirous next day at taines when they met for lunch samuel dropped all pretence and made frank love to her he had no plans no definite intention except to kiss her lips again, to hold her in his arms and feel that she was very little and pathetic and lovable. He took her home, and this time they kissed until both their hearts beat high. Words and phrases formed on his lips. And then suddenly there were steps on the porch. A hand tried the outside door. Marjorie turned dead white.

Wait, she whispered to Samuel in a frightened voice. But in angry impatience at the interruption he walked to the front door, and threw it open. Everyone has seen such scenes on the stage, seen them so often that when they actually happen, people behave very much like actors. Samuel felt that he was playing a part, and the lines came quite naturally.

He announced that all had a right to lead their own lives and looked at Marjorie's husband menacingly as if daring him to doubt it. Marjorie's husband spoke of the sanctity of the home, forgetting that it hadn't seemed very holy to him lately. Samuel continued along the line of The Right to Happiness. Marjorie's husband mentioned firearms in the divorce cord. Then suddenly he stopped and scrutinized both of them.

Marjorie in a pitiful collapse on the sofa, Samuel her wranging the furniture in a consciously heroic pose. Go upstairs, Marjorie, he said in a different tone. Stay where you are, Samuel countered quickly. Marjorie rose, wavered. and sat down, rose again and moved, hesitatingly toward the stairs. "'Come outside,' said her husband to Samuel. "'I want to talk to you.'

Samuel glanced at Marjorie, tried to get some message from her eyes. Then he shut his lips and went out. There was a bright moon, and when Marjorie's husband came down the steps, Samuel could see plainly that he was suffering, but he felt no pity for him. They stood and looked at each other a few feet apart, and the husband cleared his throat as though it were a bit husky. "'That's my wife,' he said quietly, and then a wild anger surged up inside him. "'Dam you!' he cried, and hit Samuel in the face with all his strength. In that second as Samuel slumped to the ground, it flashed to him that he had been hit like that twice before,

and simultaneously the incident altered like a dothed. dream. He felt suddenly awake. Mechanically, he sprang up to his feet and squared off. The other man was waiting, fists up, a yard away, but Samuel knew that though physically he had him by several inches and many pounds, he wouldn't hit him. This situation had miraculously and entirely changed. A moment before Samuel had seemed to himself heroic. Now he seemed the cad, the outsider and Marjorie's husband silhouetted against the lights of the little house, the eternal heroic figure, the defender of his home. There was a pause, and then Samuel turned quickly away and went down the path for the last time. Four. Of course, after the third blow,

Samuel put in several weeks at conscious introspection. The blow years before at Andover had landed on his personal unpleasantness, the workmen of his college days had jarred the snobbishness out of his system, and Marjorie's husband had given a severe jolt to his greedy selfishness. It threw women out of his can until a year later when he met his future wife, for the only sort of woman worthwhile seemed to be the one who could be protected as Marjorie's husband had protected her. Samuel could not imagine his grass widow, Mrs. DeFerriac, causing any righteous blows on her, own account. His early 30s found him well on his feet. He was associated with old Peter Carhart,

who was in those days a national figure. Carhart's physique was like a rough model for a statue of Hercules, and his record was just as solid, a pile made for the pure joy of it without cheap exhortation or shady scandal. He had been a great friend of Samuel's father, but he watched the son for six years before taking him into his own office. Heaven knows. Heaven knows. He was a how many things he controlled at that time, mines, railroads, banks, whole cities. Samuel was very close to him, knew his likes and dislikes, his prejudices, weaknesses, and many strengths. One day, Carrhart sent for Samuel, and, closing the door of his inner office, offered him a chair and a cigar. "'Everything okay, Samuel,' he asked.

"'Why, yes.' "'I've been afraid you were getting a bit stale. Stale? Samuel was puzzled. You've done no work outside the office for nearly ten years. But I've had vacations in the Adirond. Carhart waved this aside. I mean outside work.

Seeing the things move that we've always pulled the strings of here. No, admitted Samuel. I haven't. So, he said abruptly, I'm going to give you an outside. side job that'll take about a month. Samuel didn't argue. He rather liked the idea, and he made up his mind that, whatever it was, he would put it through just as Carrhart wanted it. That was his employer's greatest hobby, and the men around him were as dumb under direct orders as infantry subalterns. "'You'll go to San Antonio and see Hamill,' continued Carrhart.

"'He's got a job on hand, and he wants a man to take charge.' hamel was in charge of the carhart interests in the south-west a man who had grown up in the shadow of his employer and with whom though they had never met samuel had much official correspondence when do i leave you'd better go to-morrow answered carhart glancing at the calendar that's the first of may i'll expect your report here on the first of june next morning samuel left for chicago and two days later he was facing hamel across a table in the office of the merchant's trust in San Antonio. It didn't take long to get the gist of the thing. It was a big deal in oil which concerned the buying up of 17 huge adjoining ranches. This buying up had to be done in one week and it was a pure squeeze. Forces had been set in motion that had put the 17 owners between the devil and the deep sea, and Samuel's part was simply to handle the matter from a little village near Pueblo. With tact and deficiency, the right man could bring it off with the

without any friction, for it was merely a question of sitting at the wheel and keeping a firm hold. Hamill, with an astuteness many times valuable to his chief, had arranged a situation that would give a much greater clear gain than any dealing in the open market. Samuel shook hands with Hamill, arranged to return in two weeks, and left for San Felipe in New Mexico. It occurred to him, of course, that Carhart was trying him out. Hamill's report on his handling of this might be a factor in something big for him, but even without that he would have done his best to put the thing through.

Ten years in New York had made him sentimental, and he was quite accustomed to finish everything he began, and a little bit more. All went well at first. There was no enthusiasm, but each one of the seventeen ranchers concerned knew Samuel's business, knew what he had behind him, and that they had as little chance of holding out his flies on a window pane. several of them were resigned some of them cared like the devil but they talked it over argued it with lawyers and couldn't see any possible loophole five of the ranchers had oil the other twelve were part of the chance but quite as necessary to hamel's purpose in any event samuel soon saw that the real leader was an early settler named mackintyre a man of perhaps fifty gray-haired clean-shaven bronzed by forty new mexico summers and with those clear steady eyes that texas and new mexico weather are apt to give

his ranch had not yet shown oil but it was in the pool and if any man hated to lose his land mackintyre did every one had rather looked at him at first to avert the big calamity and he had hunted all over the territory for the legal means with which to do it but he had failed and he knew it he avoided samuel assiduously but samuel was sure that when the day came for the signatures he would appear it came a baking may day with hot waves rising off the parched land as far as eyes could see and as samuel sat stewing in his little improvised office a few chairs a bench and a wooden table he was glad the thing was almost over he wanted to get back east the worst way and join his wife and children for a week at the sea-shore The meeting was set for four o'clock, and he was rather surprised at 3.30 when the door opened, and McIntyre came in. Samuel could not help respecting the man's attitude, and feeling a bit sorry for him. McIntyre seemed closely related to the prairies, and Samuel had the little flicker of envy that city people feel toward men who live in the open. "'Afternoon,' said McIntyre, standing in the open doorway with his feet apart and his hands on his hips. Hello, Mr. McIntyre?

Samuel rose, but omitted the formality of offering his hand. He imagined the rancher cordially loathed him, and he hardly blamed him. McIntyre came in and sat down leisurely. You got us, he said suddenly. This didn't seem to require any answer. When I heard Carhart was back of this, he continued, I gave up. Mr. Carhart is—began, Samuel, but McIntyre waved to. him silent.

Don't talk about that dirty, sneak thief. Mr. McIntyre, said Samuel briskly, if this half-hour is to be devoted to that sort of talk, Oh, dry up, young man, McIntyre interrupted. You can't abuse a man who'd do a thing like this. Samuel made no answer. It's simply a dirty filch. They're just our skunks like him too big to handle. You're being paid liberally, offered Samuel.

shut up roared mackintyre suddenly i want the privilege of talking he walked to the door and looked out across the land the sunny steaming pasturage that began almost at his feet and ended with the gray-green of the distant mountains when he turned around his mouth was trembling "'Do you fellows love Wall Street?' he said hoarsely. "'Or wherever you do, your dirty scheming.' He paused. "'I suppose you do. No critter gets so low that he doesn't sort of love the place he's worked, where he sweated out the best he's had in him.' Samuel watched him awkwardly.

McIntyre wiped his forehead with a huge blue handkerchief and continued, "'I reckon this rotten old devil had to have another million. I reckon we're just a few of the poor he's blotted out to buy a couple more carriages or something. He waved his hand toward the door. I built a house out there when I was 17 with these two hands. I took a wife there at 21, added two wings, and with four mangy steers I started out. Forty summers I saw the sun come up over those mountains and drop down red as blood in the evening, before the heat drifted off and the stars came out.

I've been happy in that house. My boy was born there, and he died there, late one spring, in the hottest part of an afternoon like this. Then the wife and I lived there alone like we'd lived before, and we sort of tried to have a home. After all, not a real home, but nigh it, because the boy always seemed around close somehow, and we expected a lot of nights to seem running up the path to supper. His voice was shaking so he could hardly speak, and he turned again to the door. His gray eyes contracted. That's my land out there, he said, stretching out his arm.

My land, by God, it's all I've got in the world, and never wanted. He dashed his sleeve across his face, and his tone changed as he turned slowly and faced Samuel. But I suppose it's got to go when they want it. It's got to go. Samuel had to talk. He felt that in a minute more he would lose his head. so he began as level-voiced as he could in the sort of tone he saved for disagreeable duties it's a business mr mcintyre he said it's inside the law perhaps we couldn't have bought out two or three of you at any price but most of you did have a price progress demands some things never had he felt so inadequate and it was with the greatest relief that he heard hoof-beats a few hundred yards away but at his words he had his words

the grief in McIntyre's eyes had changed to fury. You and your dirty gang of crooks, he cried. Not one of you has got an honest love for anything on God's earth. You're a herd of money, swine. Samuel rose and McIntyre took a step toward him. You long-winded dude! You got our land! Take that for Peter Carhart!

He swung from the shoulder quick as lightning and down went Samuel in a heap. dimly he heard steps in the doorway and knew that someone was holding McIntyre, but there was no need. The rancher had sunk down in his chair and dropped his head in his hands. Samuel's brain was whirring. He realized that the fourth fist had hit him, and a great flood of emotion cried out that the law that had inexorably ruled his life was in motion again. In half days he got up and strode from the room. The next ten minutes were perhaps the hardest of his eyes. life. People talk of the courage of convictions, but in actual life a man's duty to his family

may make a rigid corpse seem a selfish indulgence of his own righteousness. Samuel thought mostly of his family, yet he never really wavered. That jolt had brought him too. When he came back in the room there were a lot of worried faces waiting for him, but he didn't waste any time explaining. "'Gentlemen,' he said, "'Mr. McIntyre has been. kind enough to convince me that in this matter you are absolutely right, and the Peter Carhart interests absolutely wrong. As far as I'm concerned, you can keep your ranches to the rest of your days. He pushed his way through an astounded gathering, and within a half hour had sent two telegrams

that staggered the operator into complete unfitness for business. One was to Hamel in San Antonio, one was to Peter Carhart in New York. Samuel didn't sleep much that night. He'd knew that for the first time in his business career he had made a dismal, miserable failure. But some instinct in him, stronger than will, deeper than training, had forced him to do what would probably end his ambitions and his happiness, but it was done, and it never occurred to him that he could have acted otherwise. Next morning two telegrams were waiting for him. The first was from Hamel.

It contained three words, You blamed idiot! The second was from New York. Dial off, come to New York immediately, Carhart. Within a week, things had happened. Hamill quarreled furiously and violently defended his scheme. He was summoned to New York and spent a bad half-hour on the carpet in Peter Carhart's office. He broke with the Carhart interests in July,

and in August Samuel Meredith, at 35 years old, was, to all intents, made Carhart's partner. The fourth fist had done its work. I suppose that there's a caddish streak in every man that runs crosswise across his character and disposition and general outlook. With some men it's secret and we never know it's there until they strike us in the dark one night. But Samuel showed when it was in action. and the sight of it made people see red he was rather lucky in that because every time his little devil came up it met a reception that sent it scurrying down below in a sickly feeble condition it was the same devil the same streak that made him order gilly's friends off the bed that made him go inside marjorie's house if you could run your hand along samuel meredith's jaw you'd feel a lump he admits he's never been sure which fist left it there

but he wouldn't lose it for anything he says there's no cad like an old cad and that sometimes just before making a decision it's a great help to stroke his chin the reporters call it a nervous characteristic but it's not that it's so he can feel again the gorgeous clarity the lightning sanity of those four fists end of section eight end of flappers and philosophers by f scott fitzgerald