things and soft
lights and fresh flowers.

The nearer he approached the house, the more absolutely unequal Paul felt
to the sight of it all; his ugly sleeping chamber; the cold bath-room
with the grimy zinc tub, the cracked mirror, the dripping spiggots; 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 car fare, 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 soap-box, 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 usually sat out on their front "stoops," and
talked to their neighbours on the next stoop, or called to those across
the street in neighbourl