a new chapter in his
life.

Before he left the bank he locked the door of the private parlor, and
was alone for two or three minutes. The office boy was greatly puzzled
the next morning, when he found all the new pairs of shoes ranged
intact in the adjoining cupboard. The old ones were missing.

Littimer had gone away in them, furtively. He was ashamed of his own
impulse.

This time he resolutely remained afoot instead of hiring a carriage. He
despatched a messenger to Blanche, saying that sudden business would
prevent his returning to dinner, and continued indefinitely on his
way--whither? As to that he was by no means certain; he knew only that
he must get out of the beaten track, out of the ruts. For an hour or
two he must cease to be Littimer, the prosperous moneyed man, and must
tread once more the obscure paths through which he had made his way to
fortune. He could hardly have explained the prompting which he obeyed.
Could it have had anything to do with the treacherous holes in the
bottoms of those old shoes?

As it chanced, he passed by "The Fried Cat"; and, clingy though the
place was, lie felt an irresistible desire to enter it. Seating
himself, he ordered the regular dinner of the day. The light was dim;
the tablecloth was dirty; the attendance was irregular and distracted.
Littimer took one sip of the sour wine--which had a flavor resembling
vinegar and carmine ink in equal parts--and left the further contents
of his bottle untasted. The soup, the stew, and the faded roast that
were set before him, he could scarcely swallow; but a small cup of
coffee at the end of the wellnigh Barmecide repast came in very
palatably.

In default of prandial attractions, Littimer tried to occupy himself by
looking at the people around him. The omnifarious assembly included
pale, prim-whiskered young clerks; shabby, lonely, sallow young women,
whose sallowness and shabbiness stamped them with the mark of
integrity; other females whose specious splendor was not nearly so
reassuring; old men, broken-down men, middle-aged men of every
description, except the well-to-do.

"Some of them," Littimer reflected, "are no worse than I am. But are
any of them really any better?"

He could not convince himself that they were; yet his sympathies,
somehow, went out toward this motley crowd. It appeared to him very
foolish that he should sympathize, but he could not help it. "And,
after all," was the next thought that came to him, "