n? Ten
years of it! I'm a broken man. God, how I used to pray that our
Congressman would commit suicide, or the Mayor murder his wife--just to
be able to write a real story!

EILEEN (_with a smile_). Is it as bad as that? But weren't there other
things in the town--outside your work--that were interesting?

MURRAY (_decidedly_). No. Never anything new--and I knew everyone and
every thing in town by heart years ago. (_With sudden bitterness._) Oh,
it was my own fault. Why didn't I get out of it? Well, I didn't. I was
always going to--to-morrow--and to-morrow never came. I got in a
rut--and stayed put. People seem to get that way, somehow--in that
town. It's in the air. All the boys I grew up with--nearly all, at
least--took root in the same way. It took pleurisy, followed by T.B.,
to blast me loose.

EILEEN (_wonderingly_). But--your family--didn't they live there?

MURRAY. I haven't much of a family left. My mother died when I was a
kid. My father--he was a lawyer--died when I was nineteen, just about
to go to college. He left nothing, so I went to work on the paper
instead. And there I've been ever since. I've two sisters, respectably
married and living in another part of the state. We don't get
along--but they are paying for me here, so I suppose I've no kick.
(_Cynically._) A family wouldn't have changed things. From what I've
seen that blood-thicker-than-water dope is all wrong. It's thinner than
table-d'hote soup. You may have seen a bit of that truth in your own
case already.

EILEEN (_shocked_). How can you say that? You don't know----

MURRAY. Don't I, though? Wait till you've been here three months or
four--when the gap you left has been comfortably filled. You'll see
then!

EILEEN (_angrily, her lips trembling_). You must be crazy to say such
things! (_Fighting back her tears._) Oh, I think it's hateful--when you
see how badly I feel!

MURRAY (_in acute confusion. Stammering_). Look here, Miss Carmody, I
didn't mean to---- Listen--don't feel mad at me, please. My tongue ran
away with me. I was only talking. I'm like that. You mustn't take it
seriously.

EILEEN (_still resentful_). I don't see how you can talk. You
don't--you can't know about these things--when you've just said you had
no family of your own, really.

MURRAY (_eager to return to her good graces_). No. Of course I don't
know. I was just talking regardless for the fun of listening to it.

EILEEN (_after a pause_). Hasn't either of y