ith only the picture of Albert of the Kingdom of Sorrows in the window
as a memento. Nothing further was seen or heard of Plooie. But
Schepstein, wandering far afield in search of tenement sales a full year
after, encountered Annie Oombrella washing down the steps of an office
far over in Lewis Street, nearly to the river. All the plumpness which
she had taken on in the happy days was gone. She looked wistful
and haggard.

Schepstein, doing the polite (which, as he accurately states, costs
nothing and might get you something some time), asked after Plooie.
Where was he? Annie Oombrella shook her head.

"Left you, has he?" asked Schepstein, astonished at this evidence of
iniquity.

"Yes," said Annie Oombrella. But there was a ring in her voice that
Schepstein failed to understand. It sounded almost like defiance. Her
eyes were deep-hollowed and sorrowful, but they met his as squarely as
they could, considering their cast. Schepstein was quite shocked to
observe that there was no shame in them. I suppose the shock temporarily
unbalanced his principles, for, having caught sight of one of her shoes,
he offered to lend her three dollars, indefinitely and without interest,
on her bare note-of-hand. (When he saw the other shoe, he made it five.)
She looked at the money anxiously, but shook her head.

"Well, if you ever need a home, the basement's vacant and there ain't a
better basement in Our Square."

Annie Oombrella began to cry quietly, and Schepstein went on about his
business.

Through the ensuing years many women cried quietly or vehemently,
according to their natures, and many men went away from places that had
known them, to be no more known of those places; and the little Kingdom
of Sorrows, shattered, blood-soaked, and unconquerable, stood fast, a
bulwark between the ravager of the world and his victory until there
sped across the death-haunted seas the army that was to turn the scales.
Our Square gave to that sacrifice what it can never recover: witness the
simple memorials in Our Square.

Many people see ghosts; Our Square is well haunted, as befits its
ancient and diminished glories. Few hear ghosts. This is as it ought to
be. In their very nature, ghosts should be seen, not heard. Yet, in the
year of grace, 1919, under a blazing September sun, with a cicada,
vagrant from heaven knows whence, frying his sizzling sausages in our
lilac bush, and other equally insistent sounds of reality filling the
air, my