ots; his father, at the top of the stairs, his hairy legs sticking
out from his nightshirt, his feet thrust into carpet slippers. He was
so much later than usual that there would certainly be inquiries and
reproaches. Paul stopped short before the door. He felt that he could
not be accosted by his father tonight; that he could not toss again on
that miserable bed. He would not go in. He would tell his father that he
had no carfare and it was raining so hard he had gone home with one of
the boys and stayed all night.

Meanwhile, he was wet and cold. He went around to the back of the
house and tried one of the basement windows, found it open, raised it
cautiously, and scrambled down the cellar wall to the floor. There he
stood, holding his breath, terrified by the noise he had made, but the
floor above him was silent, and there was no creak on the stairs. He
found a soapbox, and carried it over to the soft ring of light that
streamed from the furnace door, and sat down. He was horribly afraid of
rats, so he did not try to sleep, but sat looking distrustfully at the
dark, still terrified lest he might have awakened his father. In such
reactions, after one of the experiences which made days and nights out
of the dreary blanks of the calendar, when his senses were deadened,
Paul's head was always singularly clear. Suppose his father had heard
him getting in at the window and had come down and shot him for a
burglar? Then, again, suppose his father had come down, pistol in hand,
and he had cried out in time to save himself, and his father had been
horrified to think how nearly he had killed him? Then, again, suppose
a day should come when his father would remember that night, and
wish there had been no warning cry to stay his hand? With this last
supposition Paul entertained himself until daybreak.

The following Sunday was fine; the sodden November chill was broken
by the last flash of autumnal summer. In the morning Paul had to go to
church and Sabbath school, as always. On seasonable Sunday afternoons
the burghers of Cordelia Street always sat out on their front stoops and
talked to their neighbors on the next stoop, or called to those across
the street in neighborly fashion. The men usually sat on gay cushions
placed upon the steps that led down to the sidewalk, while the women, in
their Sunday "waists," sat in rockers on the cramped porches, pretending
to be greatly at their ease. The children played in the streets; ther