im for the sake of what Old Man Randall might have
been.

All these things you know. And knowing them, what is left for the
imagination? How can one dream dreams about people when one knows
how much they pay their hired girl, and what they have for dinner on
Wednesdays?

CHAPTER V. THE ABSURD BECOMES SERIOUS

I can understand the emotions of a broken-down war horse that is hitched
to a vegetable wagon. I am going to Milwaukee to work! It is a thing to
make the gods hold their sides and roll down from their mountain peaks
with laughter. After New York--Milwaukee!

Of course Von Gerhard is to blame. But I think even he sees the humor
of it. It happened in this way, on a day when I was indulging in a
particularly greenery-yallery fit of gloom. Norah rushed into my room.
I think I was mooning over some old papers, or letters, or ribbons, or
some such truck in the charming, knife-turning way that women have when
they are blue.

"Out wid yez!" cried Norah. "On with your hat and coat! I've just had
a wire from Ernst von Gerhard. He's coming, and you look like an
under-done dill pickle. You aren't half as blooming as when he was here
in August, and this is October. Get out and walk until your cheeks are
so red that Von Gerhard will refuse to believe that this fiery-faced
puffing, bouncing creature is the green and limp thing that huddled in a
chair a few months ago. Out ye go!"

And out I went. Hatless, I strode countrywards, leaving paved streets
and concrete walks far behind. There were drifts of fallen leaves all
about, and I scuffled through them drearily, trying to feel gloomy, and
old, and useless, and failing because of the tang in the air, and
the red-and-gold wonder of the frost-kissed leaves, and the regular
pump-pump of good red blood that was coursing through my body as per
Norah's request.

In a field at the edge of the town, just where city and country begin to
have a bowing acquaintance, the college boys were at football practice.
Their scarlet sweaters made gay patches of color against the dull
gray-brown of the autumn grass.

"Seven-eighteen-two-four!" called a voice. There followed a scuffle, a
creaking of leather on leather, a thud. I watched them, a bit enviously,
walking backwards until a twist in the road hid them from view. That
same twist transformed my path into a real country road--a brown, dusty,
monotonous Michigan country road that went severely about its business,
never once stoppi