The house was not so large as I had thought it. The majestic "parlor" had shrunk from an enormous to a normal room. But there was the wide hardwood banister rail, down which I used to slide, and there was the alcove, off the big front bedroom, where they put me when I had the accident; and there was the place where my crib stood. I had forgotten all about that crib, but suddenly I saw it, with its inclosing sides of walnut slats. However, it was not until I mounted to the attic that the strangest memories besieged me. The instant I entered the attic I knew the smell. In all the world there is no smell exactly like the smell which haunts the attic of that house. With it there came to me the picture of old Ellen and the recollection of a rainy day, when she set me to work in the attic, driving tacks into cakes of laundry soap. That was the day I fell downstairs and broke my collarbone. Leaving the house I went out to the alley. Ah! those beloved back fences and the barns in which we used to play. Where were the old colored coachmen who were so good to us? Where was little Ed, ex-jockey, and ex-slave? Where was Artis? Where was William? William must be getting old. At the door of his barn I paused and, not without some faint feeling of fear, knocked. The door opened. A young colored man stood within. He wore a chauffeur's cap. So the old surrey was gone! There was a motor now. "Where's William?" I asked. "William ain't here no more," he said. "But where is he?" "Oh, he's most generally around the alley, some place, or in some of the houses. He does odd jobs." "Thanks," I said and, turning, walked up the alley, fearing lest I should not be able to find the old colored man who, perhaps more than any one outside my family, was the true friend of my boyhood. Then, as I moved along, I saw him far away and recognized him by the familiar, slouching step. And as I walked to meet him, and as we drew near to each other in that long narrow alley, it seemed to me that here was another allegory in which the alley somehow represented life. How glad we were to meet! William looked older, his close-cropped wool was whiter, he stooped a little more, but he had the same old solemn drawl, the same lustrous dark eye with the twinkle in it, even the same old corncob pipe--or another like it, burned down at the edge. We stood there for a long time, exchanging news. Ed had gone down South with the Bakers when they moved away. Artis was on "the force." [Illustration: The bold front of Michigan Avenue along Grant Park ... great buildings wreathed in whirling smoke and that allegory of infinity which confronts one who looks eastward] "The neighborhood's changed a good bit since you was here. Lots of the old families have gone. I'm almost a stranger around the alley myself now. I must be a pretty tough old nut, the way I keep hangin' on." He smiled as he said that. * * * * *