own stairs.

LXI

PASTEL

"If only I had his youth!" sighed the old gentleman looking out of the
window of his halted limousine at the young man standing in the roadway.

"If only I had his experience!" sighed the young man standing in the
crowded roadway looking at the old gentleman through the window of the
halted limousine.

"If only they'd get a move on and let a man do his work!" said the
middle-aged street-sweep, smacking his lips over the fine flavour of his
chewing tobacco and taking a deep breath of the keen autumn air.

LXII

IMITATIONS

Resplendent in silks and furs and a marvelous necklace of diamonds, she
sat with superior mien in an opera box. Now and again, with an air of
infinite ennui and disdain, she glanced coolly aloft through her
lorgnette at the eager poor in the steep, high altitudes of the
galleries.

The people in the great opera house whispered to one another that the
marvelous necklace of diamonds was unquestionably an imitation.
"Somehow," they said, "it looks like one." But they were wrong. The
necklace of diamonds was quite genuine. It was not the necklace of
diamonds, but the lady that was the imitation.

LXIII

THE COQUETTE

A rose, an orchid and a little white clover were pressed between the
leaves of a coquette's diary.

"She loves me more than she loves either of you," cried the rose,
"because I am the first flower my master ever gave her!"

"She loves me more than she loves either of you," protested the orchid,
"because I am the last flower _my_ master ever gave her!"

The little white clover smiled to itself and said nothing. For the
little white clover knew that its mistress had picked it herself.

LXIV

MOONLIGHT

It was in the late Springtime. And they were very young.

The young man sighed, "Ah, if the night were only fair, that we might
sit close together, you and I, in the moonlight."

It was in the late Springtime. And they were very young.

The young moth sighed, "Ah, if the night were only fair, that they might
go out into the moonlight and leave the screen doors open that we might
play close together, you and I, in the gaslight."

LXV

THE ETERNAL MASCULINE

"Whatever happens, wherever I go, wherever I am, I shall think of you,"
he said as he drew her to him and kissed her goodbye.

Three days out at sea he met another. And that night on the silver
hurricane deck, under shelter of the life boats, tru