the walls of the seine-hung room vanished, and
she saw the Sullivan County hills and rills. Bob felt her hands
quiver in his as he began the verse from old Omar:

"Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly--and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing!"

And then he walked to the table and poured a stiff drink of Scotch
into a glass.

But in that moment a mountain breeze had somehow found its way in
and blown away the mist of the false Bohemia.

Jessie leaped and with one fierce sweep of her hand sent the bottle
and glasses crashing to the floor. The same motion of her arm
carried it around Bob's neck, where it met its mate and fastened
tight.

"Oh, my God, Bobbie--not that verse--I see now. I wasn't always such
a fool, was I? The other one, boy--the one that says: 'Remould it to
the Heart's Desire.' Say that one--'to the Heart's Desire.'"

"I know that one," said Bob. "It goes:

"'Ah! Love, could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire
Would not we--'"

"Let me finish it," said Jessie.

"'Would not we shatter it to bits--and then
Remould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!'"

"It's shattered all right," said Bob, crunching some glass under his
heel.

In some dungeon below the accurate ear of Mrs. Pickens, the landlady,
located the smash.

"It's that wild Mr. Babbitt coming home soused again," she said.
"And he's got such a nice little wife, too!"

THE PENDULUM

"Eighty-first street--let 'em out, please," yelled the shepherd in
blue.

A flock of citizen sheep scrambled out and another flock scrambled
aboard. Ding-ding! The cattle cars of the Manhattan Elevated rattled
away, and John Perkins drifted down the stairway of the station with
the released flock.

John walked slowly toward his flat. Slowly, because in the lexicon
of his daily life there was no such word as "perhaps." There are no
surprises awaiting a man who has been married two years and lives in
a flat. As he walked John Perkins prophesied to himself with gloomy
and downtrodden cynicism the foregone conclusions of the monotonous
day.

Katy would meet him at the door with a kiss flavored with cold cream
and butter-scotch. He would remove his coat, sit upon a macadamized
lounge and read, in the evening paper, of Russians and Japs
slaughtered by the deadly linotype. For dinner there w