g
of the mothers kissing and packing to school the rosy, laughing
children.

It might be hard to imagine that far to the south in that moving human
ocean, a certain Joe Blaine, swallowed in the sea, was yet as real a
fact as the city contained--that to himself he was far from being
swallowed, that he was, in fact, so real to himself that the rest of the
city was rather shadowy and unreal, and that he was immensely concerned
in a thousand-flashing torrent of thoughts, in a mix-up of appetite and
desires, and in the condition and apparel of his body. That as he sat at
his desk, for instance, it was important to him to discover how he could
break himself of a new habit of biting the end of his pen-holder.

And yet, under that flood of roofs, Joe was struggling with that crucial
problem. He finally settled it by deciding to smoke lots of cigars, and
proceeded to light one as a beginning. He smoked one, then a second,
then a third--which was certainly bad for his health. He was in the
throes of a violent reaction.

Several days of relentless activity had followed the moving in. There
was much to do. The four rooms became immaculately clean--sweetened up
with soap and water, with neat wallpaper, with paint and furniture.
Even the dark inner bedrooms contrived to look cozy and warm and
inviting. Joe's mother was a true New England housekeeper, which meant
scrupulous order, cleanliness, and brightness. The one room exempt from
her rule was Joe's. After the first clean-up, his mother did not even
try to begin on it.

"You're hopeless, Joe," she laughed, "and you'll ruin faster than I can
set right."

And so that editorial office soon became a nest of confusion. The walls
were lined with bookshelves and a quaint assortment of books, old and
new, populated not only these, but the floor, the two tables, the
roll-top desk, and here and there a chair. White paper began to heap up
in the corners. Magazines--"my contemporaries," said the proud
editor--began their limitless flood. And the matting on the floor was
soon worn through by Joe's perpetual pacing.

The whole home, however, began to have atmosphere--personality. There
was something open, hospitable, warm about it--something comfortable and
livable.

Among the first things Joe did was to procure two assistants. One was
the bookkeeper, Nathan Slate, a lean and dangling individual, who
collapsed over his high desk in the corner like a many-bladed penknife.
He was thin an