Edward held the flaccid money in his hand. He thought, “It pays to be pathetic.” He despised himself at the same time and thought, “Even Banner Hope would be shocked at this. Why haven’t I automatically evolved a proud personality like everyone else?” She opened the door by way of dismissing him. “You will curse me whenever you think of this,” she said. “It will be a satisfaction to you. People always curse those who pity them.” “I shan’t,” said Edward, putting the five dollar bill in his pocket. “I don’t believe anyone hates you or curses you. You deceive yourself.” When he looked back from the street her affronted face was still turned towards him. With relief and irritation he decided never to think of her again. He sold no books either that day or the next. He did not dare to use the provided formula—Say mother—. He had nothing definite to use instead. To one or two mothers who were too courteous to slam the door he murmured broken suggestions about the superiority of Milton to the movies. It was a false step. The movies, to the American middle class, are a substitute for religion. For uplift the home depends on the movies. Edward found himself guilty of blasphemy. Milton appeared in the light of a criminal heresy. After two days Edward went, like Noah’s homing dove, to the office, Milton still in his beak. “There’s something wrong with the district,” he complained to the young lady there. “The word book seems to mean nothing to them. All the artistic words have changed their meaning in California. _Book_ means magazine, _Music_ means jazz, _Act_ means behaving, _Picture_ means a snapshot. They haven’t even a place to keep books. They have nothing but old _Ladies’ Home Journals_ on their dressers.” Edward thought of _Milton for Our Boys_ now as a valuable but wronged book. The young woman naturally did not pay much attention to what he was saying. But she came from Calistoga and was excited to meet so rare a specimen as an educated foreigner. She was, in mind, face and fashion, a typical young woman of the Wild West. She had no interest or recreation whatever, apart from flirtation. Englishmen were all nearly lords in her democratic imagination. They were therefore laughable but worth charming. She had just mislaid her last steady beau so she was at the moment a little susceptible. She had, temporarily, no special man in mind when powdering her nose to an amethyst color or corrugating her dark, dull, padded hair.