The place was depressingly quiet. The houseman, Thomason, might be in his room, which adjoined Baron’s; but Thomason never made any noise. He was almost uncannily quiet at all times. The door between the two rooms was never opened. Both opened upon the hall, and when Thomason wished to attend to his duties he descended to the floor below, where a back stairway afforded egress to the lower regions where his more active interests lay. Yes, the quietude was just now quite depressing. Sitting by an open window, Baron looked out upon the sombre vista of back street, which was uninviting at best, but which now presented a doubly depressing aspect in the monotonously falling rain. An intercepted picture of a small park was visible several blocks away. The Lutheran church, whose bell was forever tinkling a message of another time and place, was in sight, and so was the shoulder of a brewery. Closer at hand men and women were hurrying in various directions, seeking escape from the rain. They had finished their day’s work and were now going home to enjoy their well-earned bread and meat and rest. Over there where the wind currents of two streets met two small boys stood beneath a dilapidated umbrella and permitted a torrent of muddy water in the gutter to run over their bare feet. A beer-driver, partly sheltered under the hood of his dray, drove rumblingly over the cobblestones toward the near-by brewery. On the ends of passing street-cars home-going crowds were trying to escape the falling rain. All this constituted a back-street picture which none of the Barons observed as a rule. It was the habit of the family to confine their outlook to the front view. But just now Baron was experiencing a frame of mind which made the humble side of life significant and even fascinating. Still, he was glad to have his solitude invaded when, some time later, he felt a light touch on his shoulder. Unheard and unobserved, Bonnie May had stolen into the room. She had “caught” him in a brown study. “Don’t you think you’ve been studying your part long enough?” she asked. She was looking at him with cheerful comprehension. “What part?” he asked. “Well, of course I don’t know exactly, except that it would be _your_ part--whatever that is. That’s what people always do when they’re alone, isn’t it? They think how certain words will sound, or how they will do this or that. That’s studying a part, isn’t it?” “Oh, yes--in a way.” She pulled a chair to the window, close to him, and climbed into it. “There’s really something funny about it,” she added with a reminiscent manner. “Funny?” “I mean about people and their parts. You know, mostly people aren’t thinking at all about how to do their own parts better. They’re imagining themselves in some rôle way beyond them. When they think they are ambitious they’re mostly just sore because somebody is doing better than they are. It’s jealousy--not ambition. My goodness, the little parts are important enough!”