trong legs trembling beneath him,
sank upon the nearest bench, and tried to catch hold of the world again,
of the reality of the world. His hands, unconsciously expressing his
mental attitude, held the bench's rim tight with white knuckles.

Eight hundred dollars was not so much. Besides, it was only seven hundred
and eighty now. And Dolly was a good little wife. A good, faithful,
loving little wife. In a few months the money would all be gone if he
stopped working. If he went back to the office and worked, the eight
hundred (minus twenty) could be kept in the savings bank as a precious
resource against ill-luck. And some of it could be used to buy
things--furs for Dolly, for instance, brave little Dolly. Her household
allowance could be increased a bit--brave, cheerful, careful, economical,
busy, loving little Dolly!

In the silence of his cogitation, Charles-Norton suddenly heard with
great distinctness a furtive creaking within the shoulders of his coat.

"Dear Little Dolly!" he exclaimed ostentatiously, making a brave effort
to keep his eyes upon his beacon.

But right from between his feet a sparrow, like a firecracker exploding,
sprang and went whirring up in the sky. Charles-Norton followed it with
his eyes as it went winging, winging up in a series of lines, each of
which ended in a droop, toward the high sky-scraper. And when his eyes
reached, with the bird, the top of the building, they lit upon a cloud,
a great white galleon of a cloud which, with all sails set, flanks
opulently agleam with the swell of impalpable freights, went sliding
by with streaming pennons, toward the West.

And Charles-Norton felt as though he were going to die. A great, sad
yearning seemed to split his breast. He rose to his feet, his eyes upon
the cloud. A turbulence now churned within him; his shoulders palpitated
within their cloth prison (you see, they had not been sheared for a full
twenty-four hours); a wave of madness, of daring, of revolt, rose into
the head of Charles-Norton. "No, no, no," he growled. "No more, no more,
I can't, I can't, no more, no, _no_!"

The last no was as a trumpet note--a defiant negative hurled at the Force
of the Universe. And Charles-Norton began to race around the fountain,
striking with his right fist his left hand, muttering unintelligible and
tremendous protests. You see, his wings had grown altogether too long.
He could feel their ligatures reaching like roots to his soul. When, at
the end