ne at him in the half light like Bambi's, and he shuddered.
As she sped away a sudden rage possessed him. Why did they endure, these
patient beasts? They numbered thousands upon thousands, these
down-and-outs. Why did they not stand together, rise up, and take? Why
didn't he shout them awake, and lead them himself? "Gimme a nickel to
get a drink?" whined a voice at his elbow.

"Here, you, move on!" said the policeman, roughly, arousing Jarvis from
his trance.

On the way uptown to his room he thought it over. If they could organize
and stand together, they wouldn't be what they were. It was because they
were morally and physically disintegrated that they were derelicts. This
waste was part of the price we must pay for commercial supremacy, for
money power, for--oh, sardonic jest!--for a democracy.

He went back to work with squared shoulders, and worked until dawn. At
three the next afternoon he again presented himself to the Parke butler.
Madame was indisposed, could see no one. Mr. Jocelyn was to come the
next day at three.

This time he wasted no energy in rage at the delay. He began to see that
this was no sham battle on a green hillside of a summer's day, but a
real hand-to-hand fight. It was to place him, for all time, at the head
of the regiment or with the discards. He had believed that what he had
to say was the most important thing, that this errand Bambi had sent him
on was a stupid interruption. But all at once he saw it straight. This
was his fight, here and now. He would not go back to her until he had
won. He must find the way to finance himself in the meantime. No more
provisions from the Professor or his daughter. As he made his way
downtown he thought over all the possibilities of making enough to live
on. He had never bothered his head about it before. Like the sparrow, he
had been provided for. But something of his arrogant demanding of life
seemed to have fled, a sort of terror had been planted in him by that
view of the park-bench sleepers.

How he wished Bambi were here to advise him, to laugh at him, or with
him! The thought of her was constantly creeping into his mind, to be
shoved out by a determined effort of his will. He told himself he was
becoming as boneless as the Professor, who relied on her for everything.
That night he wrote to her:

"I seem to have come to my senses to-day for the first time. Queer how a
man can go on walking, talking, and thinking in his sleep. I don't know
wh