met a
fat charwoman. He asked her if Mr. Phillips were married. "Whisky is his
wife and child," she replied.

A month later Urwick put Phillips into a story which he sold to the
_Saturday Evening Cudgel_ for $500. When it was published he sent a
marked copy of the magazine to the father of Robert Urwick Phillips with
the following note:

"Dear Mr. Phillips--I owe you about $490. Come around some day and I'll
blow you to lunch."

THE KEY RING

[Illustration]

I know a man who carries in his left-leg trouser pocket a large heavy
key ring, on which there are a dozen or more keys of all shapes and
sizes. There is a latchkey, and the key of his private office, and the
key of his roll-top desk, and the key of his safe deposit box, and a key
to the little mail box at the front door of his flat (he lives in what
is known as a pushbutton apartment house), and a key that does something
to his motor car (not being an automobilist, I don't know just what),
and a key to his locker at the golf club, and keys of various traveling
bags and trunks and filing cases, and all the other keys with which a
busy man burdens himself. They make a noble clanking against his thigh
when he walks (he is usually in a hurry), and he draws them out of his
pocket with something of an imposing gesture when he approaches the
ground glass door of his office at ten past nine every morning. Yet
sometimes he takes them out and looks at them sadly. They are a mark and
symbol of servitude, just as surely as if they had been heated red-hot
and branded on his skin.

Not necessarily an unhappy servitude, I hasten to remark, for servitude
is not always an unhappy condition. It may be the happiest of
conditions, and each of those little metal strips may be regarded as a
medal of honor. In fact, my friend does so regard them. He does not
think of the key of his roll-top desk as a reminder of hateful tasks
that must be done willy-nilly, but rather as an emblem of hard work that
he enjoys and that is worth doing. He does not think of the latchkey as
a mandate that he must be home by seven o'clock, rain or shine; nor does
he think of it as a souvenir of the landlord who must be infallibly paid
on the first of the month next ensuing. No, he thinks of the latchkey as
a magic wand that admits him to a realm of kindness "whose service is
perfect freedom," as say the fine old words in the prayer book. And he
does not think of his safe deposit box as a hateful