, like all idealists, regarding the things near to his soul,
it now for the first time struck him that he wished very much that Miss
Maitland should understand what meant so much to him. And he felt that
he could make her understand; hitherto it had not seemed so.

"I wonder if I could really show you," he answered, half to himself, and
there was something in his tone that made the girl reply, "I wish you
would try."

"Let's start all over, then," said Smith, buoyantly. "We'll begin right
here. Now, this is a map desk in which the maps are kept and on top of
which they are laid out when in use. The map desk is really the home of
underwriting, just as the stage is of the drama. And just as there are
stage conventions, certain things which are taken for granted, such as
the idea that a character on the stage cannot escape over the footlights
into the audience--that there is an imaginary blank wall between the
audience and the players--so we have our conventions and symbols in the
maps." He called for Boston One, which the map clerk laid instantly open
at his elbow. It was a large volume bound in gray canvas, perhaps two by
three feet in dimensions, and weighing several pounds. Smith turned to a
page which showed some of the blocks surrounding the Common, and Miss
Maitland bent close to look. "All these little colored objects represent
buildings, red for brick and yellow for frame; and they are drawn on a
scale of fifty feet to the inch. We get so accustomed to them that
automatically we grow to visualize the buildings themselves from these
diagrams. See, there is the State House on top of the hill; there's
Beacon Street; there's--"

"Beacon Street! Where is number forty-five? I want to see what that
looks like."

"What number did you say?" inquired Smith.

"Forty-five."

"There it is."

"Why, so it is! What is that queer little wiggle sticking out of the
front?"

"It looks like a bay window in the front room of the second floor. Is
there one in that house?"

"Yes. . . . Have you got Deerfield Street in this map?"

Smith found the place.

"Number?" he asked again.

"Here it is," the girl said amusedly. "That is where I live. Now let me
see how much visualizing you can do on that. Let me see how nearly right
you can get it. And why is it brown instead of red?"

"With pleasure," said the underwriter, with a smile. "In the first
place, it is brown because it is of steel and concrete firep