Harry Howland Luve gazed on his world. A man snoring near him blew a spray of blood from his mashed nose. A man, beside a barrel, let his fingers trail like grey worms through the sawdust ... a red tongue broke through the muck of his mouth, licked the grey worms of his hands, he slept again. At the bar, careening like ships on a wave of the world, heads dipped into huge glasses, swung against mirrors, broke thudding upon a window upon a wall that was a grin of hardness.--What am I? Harry Howland Luve laboriously counted his fingers....--One two three four ... one two three four ... one two: my God! where is my fifth finger? “I lack a finger! I lack a finger!” Body with head feet hands was one ... a toss, a catapult from the stinking Harp House into a darkness clear, biting, without, beneath the surge of the “L.” He flew. “I lack a finger.” He stopped. “What else do I lack?” Again a train. He was caught. He could not move.--It is coming over! He was clamped; the train’s murmur rose to a beat, a roar, a crash. Iron and wood and steam shrieked and stampeded, mountained on his head. He was clamped. He was a silence of horror under a mountain of noise, crushing against the eggshell of his skull.... It passed....--I am alive. He walked quiet now, looking on the pavement tracks for his lost finger. “You have lost something?” A black form rose from the street like smoke on a clear night. “Yes ... I have lost ... have lost....” “Perhaps,” said the smokey man, “I can help you to find. Come along, Brother.” He clasped his arm. The smokey man of God, the white seeker of color moved down the cavern of Chatham Square where the high houses dimmed away like stalactytes and the “L” thrust its lance into the belly of a world too weary to cry, too worn to bleed. Before him Harry Luve held his white dry hand. “My finger,” he muttered. “Yes,” said the man of God. “I see ... your pointing finger....” He sat in a quiet room. Coffee and a sandwich rolled in his raw stomach. “That tastes good, eh?” said the man of smoke. “Hot, eh? Whiskey makes you shiver, I’ll bet.” Luve held his hands together and began to cry. “Heat is the best thing in the world. Good heat is God. False heat is the Devil ... and makes you shiver,” he said. “Another cup of coffee?” “My finger ... my finger!” “Brace up, man. You’re a gentleman. You were. I can see that. See clear, and you’re whole....” “How can I see clear when I lack ... I lack--” ... “Hush--listen.” There was a sound like a soft white quiet on a red wound. Music. “Bow your head, Brother.... Listen.” The quiet crept upon his body. Tucked in his toes, moistened his hands, lay on his mouth. The quiet was warm. Was music. Harry shut his eyes. The wave of the world, booze and streaking men, fell away. He was in a flatness downy with gentle grass above a gentle river. His feet hurt, he was glad, hurting was living. A warm cloud muffled his head: through his eyes and mouth, through the warm cloud came words: