What an
indictment of man--and what an idea of help! We would hate to go to
bed with his conscience,--if editors have such old-fashioned
impediments.

But suddenly we caught a ray of light amid the encircling gloom. The
editor hadn't stated what his circulation was twenty months ago! We
recalled how Irvin Cobb once told us that the attendance at his
musical comedy had doubled the previous evening--the usher had brought
his sister. Doubtless the new circulation isn't more than a
million,--and what is a mere million nowadays?

[Illustration]

_Wood Ashes and Progress_

"Once man defended his home and hearth; now he defends his home and
radiator." The words stared out of the bulk of print on the page with
startling vividness, a gem of philosophy, a "criticism of life," in
the waste of jokes which the comic-paper editor had read and doubtless
paid for, and which the public was doubtless expected to enjoy. The
Man Above the Square laid aside the paper, leaned toward his fire,
took up the poker (an old ebony cane adorned with a heavy silver knob
which bore the name of an actor once loved and admired) and rolled the
top log over slowly and meditatively. The end of the cane was scarred
and burned from many a contest with stubborn logs, and the Man Above
the Square looked at the marks of service with a smile before he stood
the heavy stick again in its place by the fireside.

"It isn't every walking-stick which comes to such a good end," he said
aloud.

Then either because he was cold or in penitence for the pun, he walked
over to the windows to pull down the shades. But before he did so he
looked out into the night, his breath making a frosty vapor on the
pane. Below him the Square gleamed in white patches under the
arc-lamps, and across these white patches here and there a belated
pedestrian, coat collar turned up, hurried, a black shadow. The cross
on the Memorial Church gleamed like a cluster of stars, and deep in
the cold sky the moon rode silently. A chill wind was complaining in
the bare treetops beneath him and found its way to his face and body
through the window chinks. He drew down the shades quickly and pulled
the heavy draperies together with a rattle of rings on the rods. Then
he turned and faced his room.

A scarf of Oriental silk veiled the light of the single lamp, set low
on his desk, and the fire had its own way with the illumination. It
sent