below merges with the silence
above.

Nothing of these vivid contrasts struck the sense of Whitmore as with
nervous steps he hurried toward his destination. In the first place,
familiarity with the scene had deprived him of the faculty to read its
pitiless meaning; secondly, a feverish anxiety to have done with the
business that dominated his mind and accelerated his footsteps sent him
unheeding across Seventh Avenue and down that thoroughfare until he
stopped abruptly before one of the shabby second-hand clothing stores
with which the street abounds.

The air of prosperity with which he was invested saved him from being
seized immediately by one of the bawling salesmen and dragged into the
mothy interior of the shop. He was not of the type that submits to being
manhandled and browbeaten into purchasing cast-off garments. But, as he
stood hesitant and uncertain within the narrow radius of the gas-lit
window, one of the barkers found sufficient courage to invite him
within. And, to the utter amazement of the alert salesman, Whitmore
entered the store.

The proprietor of the place, a stooped, be-whiskered man who spoke with
a pronounced Hebraic accent, came forward to wait personally on this
elegant customer. But he found that no especial skill was required to
consummate a sale. Whitmore selected an old, dilapidated suit, a worn
coat, an old slouch hat, and a pair of heavy shoes, and almost caused
the beaming merchant to die of heart failure by paying the first price
demanded of him.

"It's for an amateur theatrical performance," Whitmore explained to the
proprietor, who was unable to hide his surprise that a customer of such
seeming prosperity should invest in these cast-off garments.

With the bundle containing the clothes under his arm, Whitmore returned
to Broadway and entered one of the hotels. He consulted a railroad time
table, after which he called for a taxicab and directed the chauffeur to
take him home.

He entered the house with his latchkey and climbed the stairs to his
room. Divesting himself of coat and vest, he stepped before the mirror
and shaved off his gray mustache. Next he produced a soft tennis shirt,
which he exchanged for the linen one he had on, and an old bow tie took
the place of the blue four-in-hand which he usually wore.

Undoing the bundle with which he had entered the house, he proceeded to
dress in the second-hand garments. When he had pulled the battered
slouch hat well down on