ass! The phrase
leaped forward from the flock mind which this standardized concourse
diffused. In many of the faces he read the potentialities of infinite
variety, smothered by a dull mask of conformity. What a relief if but
one in that vast flood would go suddenly mad! He tried fantastically
to picture the effect upon the others--the momentary cowardice and
braveries that such an event would call into life. For a few brief
moments certain personalities and acts would stand out sharply
glorified, like grains of dust dancing in the slanting rays of the
sun. Then, the angle of yellow light restored to white normality, the
whirling particles would drift back into their colorless oblivion.

For a moment he had a taste of desire for unspringing power. If he
could but be the wind to shake these dry reeds of custom into a
semblance of life!... One by one they passed him with an air of
growing preoccupation ... each step was carrying them nearer to the
day's pallid slavery, and an unconscious sense of their genteel
serfdom seemed gradually to settle on them. There were no bent nor
broken nor careworn toilers among this drab mass...the stamp of long
service here was a withered, soul-quenched gentility that came of
accepting life instead of struggling against it.

Gradually the temper of the crowd communicated itself to him. It was
time to descend from his speculative heights and face the problems of
his workday world. He turned sharply toward his office. Young Brauer
was just mounting the steps.

"Well, what's new?" Brauer threw out, genially.

"Not a thing in the world!" escaped Starratt.

They went into the office together.

Old Wetherbee was carrying his cash book out of the safe. The old man
smiled. He was usually in good humor early in the morning.

"Well, what's new?" he inquired, gayly.

"Not a thing in the world!" they chimed, almost in chorus.

At the rear of the office they slipped on their office coats. Brauer
took a comb from his pocket and began carefully to define the part in
his already slick hair. Starratt went forward.

In the center of the room the chief stenographer stood, putting her
formidable array of pencils through the sharpener. She glanced up at
Starratt with a complacent smile.

"Oh, good morning, Mr. Starratt!" she purred, archly. "What's new with
you?"

"Not a thing in the world," he answered, ironically, and he began to
arrange some memoranda in one of the wire baskets on his desk...