He flung the question later at the little stenographer who sat next to

him. "Miss Terry," he asked, "how long have you been here?"

She looked up at him, brightly. She was short and thin, with a

sprinkle of gray in her hair. But she was well-groomed and nicely

dressed in her mannish silk shirt and gray tailored skirt.

"Twenty years," she said, snapping a rubber band about her note-book.

"And always at this desk?"

"Oh, dear, no. I came in at nine hundred, and now I am getting twelve

hundred."

"But always in this room?"

She nodded. "Yes. And it is very nice. Most of the people have been

here as long as I, and some of them much longer. There's Major Orr,

for example, he has been here since just after the War."

"Do you ever feel as if you were serving sentence?"

She laughed. She was not troubled by a vivid imagination. "It really

isn't bad for a woman. There aren't many places with as short hours

and as good pay."

For a woman? But for a man? He turned back to his desk. What would

he be after twenty years of this? He waked every morning with the

day's routine facing him--knowing that not once in the eight hours

would there be a demand upon his mentality, not once would there be the

thrill of real accomplishment.

At noon when he saw Miss Terry strew bird seed on the broad window sill

for the sparrows, he likened it to the diversions of a prisoner in his

cell. And, when he ate lunch with a group of fellow clerks in a cheap

restaurant across the way, he wondered, as they went back, why they

were spared the lockstep.

In this mood he left the office at half-past four, and passing the

place where he usually ate, inexpensively, he entered a luxurious

up-town hotel. There he read the papers until half-past six; then

dined in a grill room which permitted informal dress.

Coming out later, he met Barry coming in, linked arm in arm with two

radiant youths of his own kind and class. Musketeers of modernity,

they found their adventures on the city streets, in cafes and cabarets,

instead of in field and forest and on the battle-field.

Barry, with a flower in his buttonhole, welcomed Roger uproariously.

"Here's Whittington," he said. "You ought to hear his poem, fellows,

about a little cat. He had us all hypnotized the other night."

Roger glanced at him sharply. His exaggerated manner, the looseness of

his phrasing, the flush on his cheeks were in strange contrast to his

usual frank, clean boyishness.




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