right in, papa. Mr. Gump is here--so tired he is he hates to come
in."

There are a few epics waiting to be dug out of remote corners. One day
an American drama will be born in a Western shack or under some East
Side stairway; one day a prophet will look within the dingy temple of a
Mr. Katzenstein at the warm red heart beating beneath a hairy chest, and
there find a classic rune to the men who moil and toil, and pay
millinery bills with a three-figure check; another day an elegiac will
be written to the men who slip the shoes off their aching feet in the
merciful seclusion of their alternate Wednesday-night subscription boxes
and sit through four hours of Wagner--facing an underdressed daughter,
two notes due on the morrow, and a remote stageful of vocalizing figures
especially designed for his alternate and inquisitional Wednesday
nights.

Life had whacked hard at Mr. Katzenstein, writ across his face in a
thousand welts and wrinkles, bent his knees and fingers, and calloused
his hands.

"Good evening, Mr. Gump--good evening! I say to mamma the young folks
got no time for us in here. I'm right?"

"The more the merrier!" said Mr. Gump, reseating himself.

"Mr. Katzenstein says he used to know your father, Mr. Gump."

"Rudolph Gump! I should say so--yes. Believe me, I wish I had half a
dollar for every shirtwaist I bought off him in my life! Your father and
me played side by each down on Cedar Street before you was born. I knew
him longer as you--he was a good silk man, was Rudolph Gump. Have a
cigar, young man?"

"Thanks--I don't smoke."

"Ain't it wonderful, though, that in a city like this my husband should
know you before you was born?"

Mrs. Katzenstein clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and
patted her hands together. Birdie regarded the company with polite
interest.

"Wonders never cease!" she said.

"Birdie, go get your papa his chair out from the dining-room--since he's
got lumbago these straight-backs ain't comfortable for him."

"Let me go for you, Miss Birdie."

"Oh no, Marcus--I know just where it is." She smiled at him with her
eyes--bright eyes that were full of warmth and reflected firelight.

Mr. Katzenstein groped in his side-pocket for a match, ran his tongue
horizontally along a cigar, and puffed it slowly into life.

"How's business?" he said, between puffs, with the lighted match still
applied to the end of his cigar.

"We can't complain, Mr. Katzenstein. If this