At noon when he saw Miss Terry strew bird seed on the broad window sill for the sparrows, he likened it to the diversions of a prisoner in his cell. And, when he ate lunch with a group of fellow clerks in a cheap restaurant across the way, he wondered, as they went back, why they were spared the lockstep. In this mood he left the office at half-past four, and passing the place where he usually ate, inexpensively, he entered a luxurious up-town hotel. There he read the papers until half-past six; then dined in a grill room which permitted informal dress. Coming out later, he met Barry coming in, linked arm in arm with two radiant youths of his own kind and class. Musketeers of modernity, they found their adventures on the city streets, in cafes and cabarets, instead of in field and forest and on the battle-field. Barry, with a flower in his buttonhole, welcomed Roger uproariously. "Here's Whittington," he said. "You ought to hear his poem, fellows, about a little cat. He had us all hypnotized the other night." Roger glanced at him sharply. His exaggerated manner, the looseness of his phrasing, the flush on his cheeks were in strange contrast to his usual frank, clean boyishness. "Come on, Poole," Barry urged, "we'll motor out in Jerry's car to the Country Club, and you can give it to us out there--about Whittington and the little cat." Roger declined, and Barry took quick offense. "Oh, well, if you don't want to, you needn't," he said; "four's a crowd, anyhow--come on, fellows." Roger, vaguely troubled, watched him until he was lost in the crowd, then sighed and turned his steps homeward. As Roger ascended to his Tower, the house seemed strangely silent. Pittiwitz was asleep beside the pot of pink hyacinths. She sat up, yawned, and welcomed him with a little coaxing note. When he had settled himself in his big chair, she came and curled in the corner of his arm, and again went to sleep. Deep in his reading, he was roused an hour later by a knock at his door. He opened it, to find Mary on the threshold. "May I come in?" she asked, and she seemed breathless. "It is Susan's night out, and Aunt Isabelle is at the opera with some old friends. Barry expected to be here with me, but he hasn't come. And I sat in the dining-room--and waited," she shivered, "until I couldn't stand it any more." She tried to laugh, but he saw that she was very pale. "Please don't think I'm a coward," she begged. "I've never been that. But I seemed suddenly to have a sort of nervous panic, and I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind if I sat with you--until Barry--came----" "I'm glad he didn't come, if it is going to give me an evening with you." He drew a chair to the fire. They had talked of many things when she asked, suddenly, "Mr. Poole, I wonder if you can tell me--about the examinations for stenographers in the Departments--are they very rigid?" "Not very. Of course they require speed and accuracy."