"Well now, well now," he shook himself together, "let's consider all this. What's the best thing to do when you go stale and have a slump?" Atkins had showed him what to do that other time. He had actually profited by it in the end, profited immensely by being temporarily out of the game, so that he could consider and understand the real inwardness of what it was all about. Why, perhaps that was what he needed to do now, pull out for a while, get away from the whole thing, look at it from a distance, get a line on what it was all about. He sucked on his pipe, cocking his head sidewise to look at the ceiling, his hands deep in his pockets. There was nothing to hinder his taking a year off. He had money enough. And not a tie on earth to prevent his doing as he pleased. He'd lose his job, of course. But he didn't seem to be just madly in love with his job anyhow. And there were other jobs. "Well, by George, why not?" Where should he go? Anywhere that wasn't the lumber business. There was the whole world, the round globe hurtling through the infinite. What in God's name was he doing in Hoosick Junction? There was England; and France; and Italy; and after that, why, anywhere again! Wherever he pleased ... the East, China, and where there were Malays and jungles. When his money gave out, if he still wanted to stay on he could earn his living as well there as here. "There!" That meant anywhere else. Anywhere else must be less dusty and frowsy and empty than here. Why under the sun had he not thought of this before? Their damned old labels do stick after all. But he would soak them off! His heart unfolded from its painful tight compression. The way out? Why had he been so long in seeing it? The way out was to put on your hat and go. _BIRTHDAYS IN SEVERAL LANGUAGES_ CHAPTER XXXVI I Ashley, Vermont, May, 1904. Horace Allen's cousin was astonished to the limit of astonishment by the news, and cried out accusingly, "Why, I thought the other time it was only because Flora wanted to go. I thought you thought it would put you on the shelf altogether. I thought you hated it." Horace considered this, sitting heavily on a bench while cousin Hetty pruned a nearby rose-bush, rigorously. Although she did not break in on his silence with a, "Well?" or, "Did you hear what I said?" she made him quite aware that she was relentlessly waiting for his answer. "Well, I did," he admitted finally, "and I do yet. And it did put me on the shelf. That's all I'm good for now. It's because of my experience in Bayonne they want me to take charge of the Paris office." "You don't have to go if they do," she pointed out; and this as she expected, brought out the real reason. "Those four years in France have spoiled me for living here," he said and awaited doggedly her inevitable cry of amazement. "_You!_" She stood up from her shorn rose-bush, her huge shears in one clumsily-gloved hand, a large thorned spray in the other, "Well for goodness' sake, _how_?"