Anne occupied another little flat on another of the mid-town streets in another of the brownstone houses. Hers was one room larger, for her brother, Joe Tracy, lived with her when not pursuing his profession on the road. There were hiatuses in Joe’s pursuit during which he inhabited a small bedroom in the rear and caused Ann a great deal of worry and expense. Joe apparently did not worry, certainly not about the expense. Absence of work wore on his temper not because Anne had to carry the flat alone, but because he had no spending money. They said it was his temper that stood in his way. Something did, for he was an excellent actor with that power of transforming himself into an empty receptacle to be filled by the character he portrayed. But directors who had had experience of him, talked about his “natural meanness” and shook their heads. When his name was mentioned it had become the fashion to add a follow-up sentence: “Seems impossible the same parents could have produced him and Anne.” People who tried to be sympathetic with Anne about him got little satisfaction. All the most persistent ever extracted was an admission that Joe was “difficult.” No one--not even Sybil or Hugh Bassett--ever heard what she felt about the fight he had had with another boy over a game of pool which had nearly landed him in the Elmira Reformatory. Bassett had dragged him out of that, and Bassett had found him work afterward, and Bassett had boosted and helped and lectured him since. And not for love of Joe, for in his heart Bassett thought him a pretty hopeless proposition. That evening, alone in her parlor, Anne was thinking about him. He had no engagement and no expectation of one, and it was not wise to leave him alone in the flat without occupation. “Satan” and “the idle hands” was a proverb that came to your mind in connection with Joe. She went to the window and leaned out. The air rose from the street, breathless and dead, the heated exhalation of walls and pavements baked all day by the merciless sun. Passers-by moved languidly with a sound of dragging feet. At areaways red-faced women sat limp in loose clothing, and from open windows came the crying of tired little children. To leave Joe to this while she was basking in the delights of Gull Island--apart from anything he might do--it wasn’t fair. And then suddenly the expression of her face changed and she drew in from the window--Hugh Bassett was coming down the street.