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With the equally inevitable answer: "Not a thing in the world!" Some one was shaking him. He gave a quick gasp that ended in a groan as he opened his eyes. Monet was bending over him. "You've been asleep," his companion said. "Come, it's time to go in... The bell for supper has rung... And you were dreaming, too ... I knew that because you smiled!" Fred Starratt grasped Monet's hand fervently.
He clutched again and presently, like a drowning man borne upon the waves by a superior force, he felt himself guided through a maze of confusing details, into swift and certain safety. The coffee house into which Fred Starratt had been led by Storch was choked with men and the thick odor of coffee and fried ham. To a man who had eaten sparingly for days the smell of food was nauseating.
"I think he's going into business for himself, or something," Starratt heard the chief stenographer say in a stage whisper to her assistant, as he passed. And at his desk he found Brauer waiting to waylay him with a bid for lunch, his little ferret eyes attempting to confirm the general gossip flying about.
A man in your frame of mind isn't a good investment for Ford, Wetherbee & Co." Starratt was still quivering with unleashed heroics. "The recommendation is coming to me," he returned, coldly. "The month's salary isn't. I'll take what I've earned and not a penny more." "Very well; suit yourself there." Mr.
Fred laughed a careless rejoinder and the janitor went down the hall, brushing the marble dado with his bedraggled feather duster. Fred Starratt closed the door softly and sat down at his desk, trying to concentrate on his mail. He felt a sudden chill. But he managed, after a fashion, to fix his mind upon immediate problems.
Storch laughed unpleasantly. "To breed hatred!" Fred Starratt sat down again with a gesture of despair. From this moment on Fred Starratt's existence had the elements of a sleepwalking dream. He felt himself going through motions which he was powerless to direct.
"Not a thing in the world!" they chimed, almost in chorus. At the rear of the office they slipped on their office coats. Brauer took a comb from his pocket and began carefully to define the part in his already slick hair. Starratt went forward. In the center of the room the chief stenographer stood, putting her formidable array of pencils through the sharpener.
Toward four o'clock in the afternoon Fred Starratt remembered that he had been commissioned by his wife to bring home oyster cocktails for dinner. Of course, it went without saying that he was expected to attend to the cigars. That meant he must touch old Wetherbee for money. Five dollars would do the trick, but, while he was about it, he decided that he might as well ask for twenty-five.
The inland cities were in the grip of strikes ... there were plenty of jobs, but few with the temerity to attempt to fill them. And, besides, what had Fred Starratt to offer in the way either of skill or brawn?... He grew to know the meaning of impotence.
Inevitably, every conversation turned upon this last absorbing topic. These men seemed eager for confidences, they wanted to share their experiences, their grievances, their hopes. But Fred Starratt recoiled. He had not yet reached the stage when a thin trickle of words fell gratefully upon his ears. He had no desire to either hear or speak. All he craved was the healing silence of open spaces.
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