face seemed to give to his eyes a
singular intensity of gaze. Now he peered intently out at the people on
the Fourteenth Street platform.

Suddenly his eyes dilated; he leaned toward the window, and raised both
hands as if to shade his eyes. Then he turned and ran toward the door,
which was sliding shut. The little man's face was white as chalk; his
eyes were round and blazing with excitement. Against the protests of the
guard, he squeezed through the door and made his escape just as the
train was beginning to move. Heedless of the commotion he caused, the
man dodged wildly across the platform toward a local, which stood there,
gongs ringing and doors closing. For all his haste, the little man was
too late to enter. He pounded on the glass of one of the closed doors
imperiously.

"Next train," said the guard shortly.

"Let me on!" demanded the little man, waving his arms wildly. "Let me
on! You have time!"

"Next train," repeated the guard.

The train began to move swiftly. The little man ran alongside, peering
in through the windows at something or somebody inside.

"Look out!" called the guard, watching him.

The man, however, paid no attention to the warning. It is strange that
he was not hurt as he ran blindly alongside the train. Perilously near
the end of the platform he stopped short and put his hand to his head.
The train thundered away, its colored rear-lights vanishing far-off in
the black tunnel. Oblivious to the interest of the spectators, oblivious
to all the hurrying and running and crowding as other trains roared into
the underground station, the little man leaned limply against a pillar.

"He's gone!" he muttered to himself. "He's gone!"

For upward of twenty years Mr. James Neal had been a clerk in the
offices of Fields, Jones & Houseman on Lower Broadway. Every day of
these twenty-odd years, if we except Sundays and holidays, Mr. Neal had
spent an hour and a half on subway trains. An hour and a half every day
for more than twenty years he had spent in the great underground system
of the Interborough. Its ceaseless roar benumbed his senses as he was
hurtled from the Bronx, where he had a room, to the Imperial Building,
where he worked, and back again. This, as he had often computed,
amounted to fifty-eight and a half working days each year, or about two
months' time. Such was the fee he paid to Time for the privilege of
using other hours for working and living. It had seemed a cruel loss at