after a while.

"Yes, but you'll come back, eh? I guess we'll take that mine if we can
agree upon terms. We own one in Colorado. Don't fail to come back. Up!"

I went out into the center of the maelstrom and laughed at him--a
capitalist keeping pace with indigestion, racing against time. Little
wonder that he was bald and pinched.

I thought that I would find a leisurely place and slowly eat a dinner,
and I did find many places, but none of them was leisurely. I went to a
hotel, and there I ate a meal without running the risk of having my
chair thrown over, and then I returned to the Rookery. Mr. Ging was
lost in his work, and in a room which opened into his apartment two
girls were hammering a race on writing machines. I walked into this
room, and the girls went on with their work as if I were at home looking
over toward the General's house instead of looking down at them. A bell
tinkled in Ging's room. One of the girls went to him and I heard him
talking rapidly to her, and presently she came back with a pad of paper
in her hand, and furiously attacked her machine. Ging rushed out into
the hall and both machines stopped, and the girls began to nibble at
bon-bons, but a moment later they dashed at their work, for Ging had
returned. I went back into his room, and, glancing round, I saw one of
the girls look up at the ceiling and then down at the floor. I knew that
she was making fun of me, and in my heart I confessed myself her enemy.

"I'm sorry," said Ging, "but I don't believe I can get off this
afternoon. Clarm's being out of town puts double work on me. But we'll
go round to-night. You've been here quite often, I suppose."

"Well, not lately," I replied.

"No? Then we can find a good many things to interest you."

I went out again and walked about, but I did not venture far beyond the
shadow of the Rookery, for I knew that should I get turned round I would
be ashamed to inquire the way back. I saw a man standing on a box
selling pens. He had a most fluent use of words, though I could see
that he was not educated. He interested his hearers with humorous
stories, as if his business were first to entertain the public and then
to pick up a living, and for the first time it struck me that
book-knowledge did not embrace everything, that people who simply read
get but a second-hand experience. We must observe form and recognize the
rules which good taste has drawn, but after all the finest form and the
most nearly