is step had its own peculiar ring in it as he left Leverich's, but it
lost somewhat of its alertness as he turned down the street that led to
the factory, unaltered, since his first coming to it, save for the
transformation of the neglected house he had noticed then, with its
gruesome interior, which had been turned into a freshly painted shop
long ago. The effect of association is inexorable. There was not a
corner, not a building, along that too familiar way, that was not hung
with some thought of care. There were moments of such strong repulsion
that he felt as if he couldn't turn down that street again--moments
lately when to enter the factory with its red-brick-arched yawning mouth
of a doorway occasioned a physical nausea--a foolish, womanish state
which irritated him.

The mail brought him the usual miscellaneous assortment of orders and
bills, and letters on minor points, and questions as to the typometer.
The mail was rather apt to be encouraging in its suggestions of a large
trade. Two letters this morning were full of enthusiastic encomium on
the use of the machine. In spite of an enormous and long-outstanding
bill for office stationery, insistently clamorous for payment--one of
those bills looked upon as trifles until they suddenly become
staggering--there was, after the mail, a general feeling of wielding the
destiny of a large part of the world, where the typometer was a power.

[Illustration: "'YOU'RE VERY GOOD TO BE SO SORRY FOR ME,' SHE
WHISPERED"]

A little woman whose husband, now dead, had been in his employ came in
to get help in collecting his insurance; she was timid before Justin,
deeply grateful for his kind and effective assistance. Two men came in,
at different times, for advice and introductions to important people. A
friend brought in a possible customer from the Sandwich Islands. There
was all that aura of prosperity that has nothing to do with the payment
of one's bills.

Justin took both the friend and the customer out to lunch, his agreeable
sense of hospitality only dimmed by the disagreeable fact of its taking
every cent of the five dollars he had expected to last for the week. He
was "strapped." The luncheon took longer, also, than he had counted on
its doing. The morning, begun well, seemed to lead up only to sordid and
anxious details--a sense of non-accomplishment, induced also by small
requisitions from different people, requiring cash from a cash-drawer
that was usually empty