use would a fine house or an elegant carriage be to
him? He knew no one to invite to the house or to ride with him in the
carriage. He began to realize how utterly alone in the world he was. He
had no friends, no acquaintances even. The running dog, with its nose
to the ground, sees nothing of the surrounding scenery. He knew men in
a business way, of course, and doubtless each of them had a home in the
suburbs somewhere, but he could not take a business man by the
shoulders and say to him, "Invite me to your house; I am lonely; I want
to know people."

If he got such an invitation, he would not know what to do with
himself. He was familiar with the counting-room and its language, but
the drawing-room was an unexplored country to him, where an unknown
tongue was spoken. On the road to wealth he had missed something, and
it was now too late to go back for it. Only the day before, he had
heard one of the clerks, who did not know he was within earshot, allude
to him as "the old man." He felt as young as ever he did, but the
phrase, so lightly spoken, made him catch his breath.

As he was now walking through the park, and away from the busy streets,
he took off his hat and ran his fingers through his grizzled hair,
looking at his hand when he had done so, as if the grey, like wet
paint, might have come off. He thought of a girl he knew once, who
perhaps would have married him if he had asked her, as he was tempted
to do. But that had always been the mistake of the Denhams. They had
all married young except himself, and so sunk deeper into the mire of
poverty, pressed down by a rapidly-increasing progeny. The girl had
married a baker, he remembered. Yes, that was a long time ago. The
clerk was not far wrong when he called him an old man. Suddenly,
another girl arose before his mental vision--a modern girl--very
different indeed to the one who married the baker. She was the only
woman in the world with whom he was on speaking terms, and he knew her
merely because her light and nimble fingers played the business sonata
of one note on his office typewriter. Miss Gale was pretty, of course--
all typewriter girls are--and it was generally understood in the office
that she belonged to a good family who had come down in the world. Her
somewhat independent air deepened this conviction and kept the clerks
at a distance. She was a sensible girl who realized that the typewriter
paid better than the piano, and accordingly turned the ex