t. He lived in the suburbs, was married, and the
superintendent of a Sunday school. His name was on all the charity
lists. He was so tall and thin and sprawling that he looked like a
human hatrack, and his solemn circle of a face, surrounded with
yellowish whiskers, had a sunflower effect. He had written a book,
"Week-Day Sermons by a Layman"; nevertheless, he was a terror.

There were, according to Sadie, girls in the store who were of no more
use as saleswomen than baby alligators would have been, but they "gave
the glad eye" to Mr. Croft, and accepted his flowers and invitations
for moonlight motor rides. Nearly every one knew, but nobody told.

What use? Who was there to tell? Croft was "up at the top and then
some." Only Saint Peter himself stood above. And who would dare
complain to Saint Peter about his respectable right hand? Even if
there were any chance of getting near P.R., which there wasn't. He
came mostly at night, as if it were a disgrace to show himself in a
shop, even if it was his own. If ever he did any "prowling" in
business hours, it was with the understudy glued to his side.

As for "sweating" and "grinding" there wasn't a cent's worth of
difference between Croft and Meggison, said Sadie. Nevertheless, Win
was feeling thankful, as the "L" train bees boomed through her brain,
that at worst it was Mr. Meggison who had mysteriously summoned her,
not Mr. Croft.

If only she could go to sleep and forget them both, and the trains
and the cars and the man in the park and Miss Stein, who still had
against her a "grouch." If only she could forget even big, blundering
Ursus, who wanted to treat her to oyster stews that he couldn't afford
and take her to a dance hall next Sunday! And Sadie, too, who knew
such strange and awful things about the world and life, although she
was so good.

But no. Impossible to stop thinking, impossible to forget, impossible
to sleep. All New York seemed to be about her ears. She could hear the
frantic rush of everything which true New Yorkers love, and she could
feel its sky-scrapers closing in around her like an unclimbable wall.
As she thought of the great, noisy city she saw it consisting entirely
of vastly high towers, with inhabitants who spent their time in
tearing about--people who looked at her in the street as if she were
not there, or, if she was, they would rather she were somewhere else.

She dared not picture the ship sailing for England nearly every day of
t