ing specimen of human woman I'd cheerfully admit it from the house-
tops and take pleasure in recommending The Green Mouse to everybody I
knew who yet remained unmarried."

They both laughed.

"What rot we've been talking," observed Smith, rising and picking up his
suitcase. "Here's our station, and we'd better hustle or we'll lose the
boat. I wouldn't miss that week-end party for the world!"

"Neither would I," said Beekman Brown.

IX

A CROSS-TOWN CAR

_Concerning the Sudden Madness of One Brown_

As the two young fellows, carrying their suitcases, emerged from the
subway at Times Square into the midsummer glare and racket of Broadway
and Forty-second Street, Brown suddenly halted, pressed his hand to his
forehead, gazed earnestly up at the sky as though trying to recollect how
to fly, then abruptly gripped Smith's left arm just above the elbow and
squeezed it, causing the latter gentleman exquisite discomfort.

"Here! Stop it!" protested Smith, wriggling with annoyance.

Brown only gazed at him and then at the sky.

"Stop it!" repeated Smith, astonished. "Why do you pinch me and then look
at the sky? Is--is a monoplane attempting to alight on me? _What_ is the
matter with you, anyway?"

"That peculiar consciousness," said Brown, dreamily, "is creeping over
me. Don't move--don't speak--don't interrupt me, Smith."

"Let go of me!" retorted Smith.

"Hush! Wait! It's certainly creeping over me."

"What's creeping over you?"

"You know what I mean. I am experiencing that strange feeling that all--
er--all _this_--has happened before."

"All what?--confound it!"

"All _this!_ My standing, on a hot summer day, in the infernal din of
some great city; and--and I seem to recall it vividly--after a fashion--
the blazing sun, the stifling odor of the pavements; I seem to remember
that very hackman over there sponging the nose of his horse--even that
pushcart piled up with peaches! Smith! What is this maddeningly elusive
memory that haunts me--haunts me with the peculiar idea that it has all
occurred before?... Do you know what I mean?"

"I've just admitted to you that everybody has that sort of fidget
occasionally, and there's no reason to stand on your hindlegs about it.
Come on or we'll miss our train."

But Beekman Brown remained stock still, his youthful and attractive
features puckered in a futile effort to seize the evanescent memories
that came swarming--gnatlike memories that teased and di