Just a book--one of the myriads that you see lying around, like sloughed snake skins on first or secondhand bookshelves--but it had been properly wept on and starved for and toiled over, as only youth in its abandonment can toil for its own ends. It had almost been prayed for, but not quite. Prayer wasn’t easy for Pidge Musser’s defiant soul. It was two in the morning. The oil stove smelled as if it were dying. Of late the wick had hiked up out of the oil a little earlier each night like a waxing moon, and Pidge had been forced to shake the oil around to keep the flame. Miss Claes and Nagar did so much for her, she was ashamed; and you could get a red apple for the price of a wick. Pidge coughed. It was the most astonishing and cavernous bark. The silence afterward was painful. She fancied she was keeping _him_ awake--the silent, dark and courteous Nagar, who did prodigies of work every day and was always willing to do more, and who had come into Pidge’s direct limelight since his sale of a story to _The Public Square_. Pidge hadn’t known a cold for years. It actually amazed her, how unclean it made her feel, and ashamed to have anybody come near. “I’m going to watch over you very closely, Pidge--you’ll have to let me, now that the book is done,” Miss Claes said in the morning, “because it’s really a shock to stop work after the way you have carried on. The drive--suddenly stopping, you know.” “I wonder how she knows?” Pidge thought to herself for the thousandth time in regard to the subtle capacities of Miss Claes. “I’m tough,” she said aloud. “That is a true saying, Pidge. On that, everything hinges. Am I to hear the story?” “It would--it must be read aloud. It’s terrible to ask, but will you?” “I’ve wanted to hear it from the beginning. Now tell me, would you like Nagar to listen, too?” “Oh, no!” “Just as you like. Only you’re offering it to the world later----” “But Nagar _knows_.” “That’s what you want, isn’t it?” “Oh, yes, but----” “He won’t say a word. Nagar rarely talks, except to answer questions. But, of course, don’t think of it, if you’d rather not.” “What is Nagar?” Pidge asked suddenly. “Just a watcher and listener in America, learning to see things impersonally.” Pidge contemplated the idea for a few seconds; then her eyes hardened. “I’ve heard lots of talk about the impersonal--oh, talk to the skies about the impersonal life in Los Angeles--by people who haven’t yet got a personality!” Miss Claes bent in low laughter. “They start in killing out personality before they get a live one,” Pidge added sullenly. “They do, my dear, but have you heard any words about the impersonal life from Nagar?” “No. That’s the best thing about him--that he doesn’t explain himself. But I hate mysteries about Hindus--hate people moving about saying, ‘Shh-sh’--finger on their lips, trying to astonish you with something they can’t tell. I’m so tired of all that!”