to move.

It was on such fertile soil that one of the Wide-a-Wakefield circulars
fell.

It chimed so well with Barstow's mood that he decided at least to look
the town over.

He came unannounced to make his own observations, like the spies sent
into Canaan. The trolley-car that met his train was rusty, paintless,
forlorn, untenanted. He took a ramshackle hack to the best hotel. Its
sign-board bore this legend: "The Palace, formerly Shelby
House--entirely new management."

He saw his baggage bestowed and went out to inspect the factory building
described to him. The cutlery-works proved smaller than his needs, and
it had a weary look. Not far away he found a far larger factory, idle,
empty, closed. The sign declared it to be the Wakefield Branch of the
Shelby Paradise Powder Company. He knew the prosperity of that firm and
wondered why this branch had been abandoned.

In the course of time the trolley-car overtook him, and he boarded it as
a sole passenger.

The lonely motorman was loquacious and welcomed Barstow as the Ancient
Mariner welcomed the wedding guest. He explained that he made but few
trips a day and passengers were fewer than trips. The company kept it
going to hold the franchise, for some day Wakefield would reach sixteen
thousand and lift the hoodoo.

The car passed an opera-house, with grass aspiring through the chinks of
the stone steps leading to the boarded-up doors.

The car passed the Shelby Block; the legend, "For Rent, apply to Amasa
Harbury," hid the list of Shelby enterprises.

The car grumbled through shabby streets to the outskirts of the town,
where it sizzled along a singing wire past the drooping fences, the
sagging bleachers, and the weedy riot of what had been a
pleasure-ground. A few dim lines in the grass marked the ghost of a
baseball diamond, a circular track, and foregone tennis-courts.

Barstow could read on what remained of the tottering fence:

HELBY'S PAST ARK

When the car had reached the end of the line Barstow decided to walk
back to escape the garrulity of the motorman, who lived a lonely life,
though he was of a sociable disposition.

Barstow's way led him shortly to the edge of a curious demesne, or
rather the debris of an estate. A chaos of grass and weeds thrust even
through the rust of the high iron fence about the place. Shrubs that had
once been shapely grew raggedly up and swept down into the tall and
ragged grass. A few evergreen trees lifted flow