"Foxmaster!" he called. "Foxmaster, you're free! You're free! I tell you, you're free! Foxmaster, look at me! Foxmaster, do you hear me? You're free, I tell you!" But the Major did not hear him. The Major was flat on his back, with his arms outstretched and the fingers of both his hands gripped in the rags of a black crêpe veil; and at the corners of his mouth the little patches of spittle bubbles were drying up. The Major would never hear anything again in this world. CHAPTER V THE EYES OF THE WORLD If there were a hundred men in a crowd and Chester K. Pilkins was there he would be the hundredth man. I like that introduction. If I wrote a book about him I doubt whether I could sum up Mr. Pilkins' personality more completely than already I have done in this the first sentence of this the first paragraph of my tale. Nevertheless, I shall try. Card-indexing him, so to speak, filling in the dotted lines after the fashion pursued by a candidate for admission to Who's Whosoever Can, we attain this result: Name? Chester K(irkham) Pilkins; born? certainly; parentage? one father and one mother; lives? only in a way of speaking; married? extensively so; business? better than it was during the panic but not so good as it might be; recreations? reading, writing, arithmetic and the comic supplements; clubs? Prospect Slope Pressing, Montauk Chess, Checkers and Whist, King's County Civic Reform and Improvement; religion? twice on Sunday, rarely on week-days; politics? whatever is the rule; height? sub-average; weight? less than sub-average; hair? same as eyes; eyes? same as hair; complexion? variable, but inclining to be fair, and warmer in moments of embarrassment; special distinguishing characteristics? Oh, say, what's the use? This would apply to Chester K. Pilkins as once he was, not as now he is. For there has been a change. As will develop. But at the time when we begin our study of him Mr. Pilkins resided in a simple and unostentatious manner in Brooklyn, N. Y., on one of those streets which are named for semi-tropical flowering shrubs for the same reason that hunting dogs are named for Greek goddesses and race horses for United States senators and tramp steamers for estimable maiden ladies. In a small, neat house, almost entirely surrounded by rubber plants, he lived with his wife, Mrs. Gertrude Maud Pilkins. This phraseology is by deliberate intent. His wife did not live with him. He lived with her. To have referred to this lady as his better half would be dealing in improper fractions. At the very lowest computation possible, she was his better eight-tenths.