[Illustration] Our Mr. Wrenn The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man by Sinclair Lewis NEW YORK AND LONDON MCMXIV TO GRACE LIVINGSTONE HEGGER Contents CHAPTER I. MR. WRENN IS LONELY CHAPTER II. HE WALKS WITH MISS THERESA CHAPTER III. HE STARTS FOR THE LAND OF ELSEWHERE CHAPTER IV. HE BECOMES THE GREAT LITTLE BILL WRENN CHAPTER V. HE FINDS MUCH QUAINT ENGLISH FLAVOR CHAPTER VI. HE IS AN ORPHAN CHAPTER VII. HE MEETS A TEMPERAMENT CHAPTER VIII. HE TIFFINS CHAPTER IX. HE ENCOUNTERS THE INTELLECTUALS CHAPTER X. HE GOES A-GIPSYING CHAPTER XI. HE BUYS AN ORANGE TIE CHAPTER XII. HE DISCOVERS AMERICA CHAPTER XIII. HE IS “OUR MR. WRENN” CHAPTER XIV. HE ENTERS SOCIETY CHAPTER XV. HE STUDIES FIVE HUNDRED, SAVOUIR FAIRE, AND LOTSA-SNAP OFFICE MOTTOES CHAPTER XVI. HE BECOMES MILDLY RELIGIOUS AND HIGHLY LITERARY CHAPTER XVII. HE IS BLOWN BY THE WHIRLWIND CHAPTER XVIII. AND FOLLOWS A WANDERING FLAME THROUGH PERILOUS SEAS CHAPTER XIX. TO A HAPPY SHORE CHAPTER I MR. WRENN IS LONELY The ticket-taker of the Nickelorion Moving-Picture Show is a public personage, who stands out on Fourteenth Street, New York, wearing a gorgeous light-blue coat of numerous brass buttons. He nods to all the patrons, and his nod is the most cordial in town. Mr. Wrenn used to trot down to Fourteenth Street, passing ever so many other shows, just to get that cordial nod, because he had a lonely furnished room for evenings, and for daytime a tedious job that always made his head stuffy. He stands out in the correspondence of the Souvenir and Art Novelty Company as “Our Mr. Wrenn,” who would be writing you directly and explaining everything most satisfactorily. At thirty-four Mr. Wrenn was the sales-entry clerk of the Souvenir Company. He was always bending over bills and columns of figures at a desk behind the stock-room. He was a meek little bachlor—a person of inconspicuous blue ready-made suits, and a small unsuccessful mustache. To-day—historians have established the date as April 9, 1910—there had been some confusing mixed orders from the Wisconsin retailers, and Mr. Wrenn had been “called down” by the office manager, Mr. Mortimer R. Guilfogle. He needed the friendly nod of the Nickelorion ticket-taker. He found Fourteenth Street, after office hours, swept by a dusty wind that whisked the skirts of countless plump Jewish girls, whose V-necked blouses showed soft throats of a warm brown. Under the elevated station he secretly made believe that he was in Paris, for here beautiful Italian boys swayed with trays of violets; a tramp displayed crimson mechanical rabbits, which squeaked, on silvery leading-strings; and a newsstand was heaped with the orange and green and gold of magazine covers. “Gee!” inarticulated Mr. Wrenn. “Lots of colors. Hope I see foreign stuff like that in the moving pictures.”