they were gone. Hahn hardly seemed to notice that they had left.
There were, I suppose, the proper number of Good-byes, and
See-you-to-morrows, and Thank yous.

Sid Hahn stood there a moment in the middle of the room, very small,
very squat, rather gnomelike, but not at all funny. He went over to the
piano and seated himself, his shoulders hunched, his short legs clearing
the floor. With the forefinger of his right hand he began to pick out a
little tune. Not a sad little tune. A Hungarian street song. He did it
atrociously. The stubby forefinger came down painstakingly on the white
keys. Suddenly the little Jap servant stood in the doorway. Hahn looked
up. His cheeks were wet with tears.

"God! I wish I could play!" he said.

LONG DISTANCE

Chet Ball was painting a wooden chicken yellow. The wooden chicken was
mounted on a six-by-twelve board. The board was mounted on four tiny
wheels. The whole would eventually be pulled on a string guided by the
plump, moist hand of some blissful six-year-old.

You got the incongruity of it the instant your eye fell upon Chet Ball.
Chet's shoulders alone would have loomed large in contrast with any
wooden toy ever devised, including the Trojan horse. Everything about
him, from the big, blunt-fingered hands that held the ridiculous chick
to the great muscular pillar of his neck, was in direct opposition to
his task, his surroundings, and his attitude.

Chet's proper milieu was Chicago, Illinois (the West Side); his job that
of lineman for the Gas, Light and Power Company; his normal working
position astride the top of a telegraph pole supported in his perilous
perch by a lineman's leather belt and the kindly fates, both of which
are likely to trick you in an emergency.

Yet now he lolled back among his pillows, dabbling complacently at the
absurd yellow toy. A description of his surroundings would sound like
Pages 3 to 17 of a novel by Mrs. Humphry Ward. The place was all
greensward, and terraces, and sun dials, and beeches, and even those
rhododendrons without which no English novel or country estate is
complete. The presence of Chet Ball among his pillows and some hundreds
similarly disposed revealed to you at once the fact that this particular
English estate was now transformed into Reconstruction Hospital No. 9.

The painting of the chicken quite finished (including two beady black
paint eyes) Chet was momentarily at a loss. Miss Kate had not told him
to stop pain