Street was a tree-shaded cottage district. The noise and rush and
clangour of the Loop had long been familiar to him. But now he seemed to
find the downtown trip arduous, even hazardous. The roar of the elevated
trains, the hoarse hoots of the motor horns, the clang of the street
cars, the bedlam that is Chicago's downtown district bewildered him,
frightened him almost. He would skip across the street like a harried
hare, just missing a motor truck's nose and all unconscious of the
stream of invective directed at him by its charioteer. "Heh! Whatcha!...
Look!"--Sometimes a policeman came to his aid, or attempted to, but he
resented this proffered help.

"Say, look here, my lad," he would say to the tall, tired, and not at
all burly (standing on one's feet directing traffic at Wabash and
Madison for eight hours a day does not make for burliness) policeman,
"I've been coming downtown since long before you were born. You don't
need to help me. I'm no jay from the country."

He visited the Stock Exchange. This depressed him. Stocks were lower
than ever and still going down. His five hundred a year was safe, but
the rest seemed doomed for his lifetime, at least. He would drop in at
George's office. George's office was pleasantly filled with dapper, neat
young men and (surprisingly enough) dapper, slim young women, seated at
desks in the big light-flooded room. At one corner of each desk stood a
polished metal placard on a little standard, and bearing the name of the
desk's occupant. Mr. Owens. Mr. Satterlee. Mr. James. Miss Rauch. Mr.
Minick.

"Hello, Father," Mr. Minick would say, looking annoyed. "What's bringing
you down?"

"Oh, nothing. Nothing. Just had a little business to tend to over at the
Exchange. Thought I'd drop in. How's business?"

"Rotten."

"I should think it was!" Old man Minick would agree.
"I--should--think--it--was! Hm."

George wished he wouldn't. He couldn't have it, that's all. Old man
Minick would stroll over to the desk marked Satterlee, or Owens, or
James. These brisk young men would toss an upward glance at him and
concentrate again on the sheets and files before them. Old man Minick
would stand, balancing from heel to toe and blowing out his breath a
little. He looked a bit yellow and granulated and wavering, there in the
cruel morning light of the big plate glass windows. Or perhaps it was
the contrast he presented with these slim, slick young salesmen.

"Well, h'are you to-day, Mr.-