ittle office
again. As he slipped the paper across an intervening table, Mr. Boner
straightened from a stooping inspection of a lower desk drawer, and
Joe saw him furtively wipe a knife blade on the leg of his trousers
and then turn upon him a look of mildest blue. There was a bulge in
his left cheek as round as an acorn. Neither spoke. A privacy had been
violated. Joe felt like a "Peeping Tom."

Noiselessly he slipped around the corner, back to his desk. The breeze
was still blowing merrily through the window and two clerks at desks
across the aisle were shoving pencils and rulers and like equipment
into their proper drawers with a smug sort of satisfaction shining in
their drawn faces. He looked at his watch. It lacked a minute of
five-thirty. Then he looked at the stack of reports again, paused, and
with an air of sudden decision dropped them into an open drawer.
Opening another drawer he swept all the movable articles on his desk
thereinto, careless of the confusion he caused, seized his hat from a
peg behind him, and strode across the office, out through the door,
into the oak-panelled lobby. For a moment he stood before the clock.
Its hands showed five twenty-nine. He paused, then deliberately
punched his number, descended the steps, and went out through the door
on to the street. The whistle was blowing as he went down the walk.
The street was deserted. He felt eyes somewhere on his back but walked
on in apparent unconcern. He was conscious of a peculiar mixture of
emotions, a little guilt, a little shame, a little furtiveness, and
more than any, a lifting sense of relief, freedom. The air was light,
cool, and invigorating. There was a pleasant crunch of dry dusty
cinders beneath his feet. And then he saw a venturesome bluebird come
darting across the open fields to the west and perch for a moment on
the top strand of the barbed-wire fence of the Plow Works, a few yards
ahead of him. It sat there swaying and watching him and, as he
approached nearer, it took wing and darted across the Plow Company's
grounds eastward toward the city. Joe filliped a wire paper clip after
it.

"You had better turn around and go back where you came from," he
called after it softly.

He proceeded homeward.

As he climbed the boarding-house stairs to his room he felt listless.
For four weeks he had climbed those listless stairs. There had been
one brief respite--the two days of Bloomfield with its easy
relaxation. What lay at the