minute; to hasten, though her hands trembled, and though the tension
drew her mouth into a narrow line and brought her brows together in a
frown.

When noon came and the whirring stopped, Hertha would look down the long
line of beetle-beasts, for so she called them to herself. At length they
were quiet. Surely they had had enough. For hours they had been
devouring, eating up the muslin fed to them. No, rather they had
disgorged; for the muslin was left, and with it thousands of yards of
cotton thread that they had doled out through their small needle jaws.
But their rest would be short and they would soon thunder tirelessly on
again.

Usually she went out to her luncheon. The nearby restaurant furnished
appetizing and inexpensive things to eat, but they were accompanied by a
new and disturbing clamor. As she took her seat at one of the many long
tables, she was enveloped in a sound of falling plates. Heavy china cup
struck heavy china saucer and both struck the marble table. Knives,
forks and spoons fell on platters, and platters fell on trays and
slipped and rattled one against another. Little plates dropped on big
plates and all went with a terrific smash into the dumb waiter; while
from some inexhaustible source new knives and forks and plates came
clattering up to take the places of the old.

"Butter cakes, please."

Hertha's voice was scarcely audible. As she ate, she listened
attentively, hoping that for a moment the noise would cease; but it only
varied in intensity, rising now to such a height that it seemed as if an
avalanche of white pottery was falling into space; again dropping to a
steady, clanging sound of utensils taking their appointed places. But no
one but herself seemed to notice, and the men and women about her ate on
diligently, silent for the most part, concerned only with securing
needed nourishment in a short period of time.

The noises on the avenue down which she walked to and from her home were
not wearying like those in the shop and the restaurant, for they came
and went. The silent moving motors had their horns that gave warning
with a silly, childish squeak or with a deep note as hoarse as a frog's.
At the corner where she turned east to go home a policeman was
stationed, and she enjoyed waiting for the sound of his shrill whistle.
But the avenue left behind, the way was less pleasant. Three busy
thoroughfares must be crossed without the policeman's aid, the last a
dirty boulevard whe