In this heartless room Edward lived, with a telephone for his only companion. In this room that day he sat on the small stiff armless rocking-chair until he had made a resolve and then he spent thirty-five minutes at the telephone. Nearly everybody in San Francisco writes poetry. Few San Franciscans would admit this, but most of them would rather like to have their productions accidentally discovered. There was quite a decided rise in the stock of Edward’s party after he had telephoned his confused instructions to his guests. Edward imagined all his guests smiling tolerantly at their own folly and his. They would hunt in the pigeon-holes of their bureaux and bring out secret typescript. “Such nonsense,” they would say to themselves, reading their work with avidity and pleasure. Each guest would innocently anticipate in his heart the awed silence that would fall on the party as the last words of his poem were read. Edward thought that he would write a poem for his party that would make everyone in the room pity him. He would make fun of death. Everyone would think, “Ah, poor soul, he has so much to bear, he must have infinite courage.” And they would think, “He has death in his eyes. Perhaps we have not been fine enough to understand him.” Edward thought that they would all feel a little inferior because their health was so good. He would sit beside Emily looking pale and brave. His deafness would give him an air of mystic withdrawal, not the usual air of stupidity. Nobody could ever think him stupid again after his poem had been read. It would be the first hour of his life, the first hour of a new life. But in the end he could think of no really poignant rhyme to valley, so he selected an old poem about death which he had written in the Tube in London. Most of the guests arrived early with their poems crackling in their bosoms. Already when Edward reached the rather dirty little French restaurant between two vacant lots above Chinatown there were two motor-cars clinging precariously to the steep cobbled street outside. Melsie Ponting and two friends were shooting craps in the low mustard-colored basement room. Melsie greeted Edward by throwing her arms round his instantly wooden form, pinioning him and making him look ridiculous. “I brought two boys to your party to jazz it up,” said Melsie. “Lon, Pike, Edward, meet each other.” Lon and Pike were already kindly pretending to be drunk in order to enliven the party. Rhoda Romero was in the room and waved flippantly at Edward. The person behind her was not Emily, it was only Avery Bird. “I left a message for Emily. She wasn’t in,” shouted Rhoda. Then Edward knew that Emily would not come.