Every one knew everybody else, and took Carl aside to tell him that everybody was "the most conscientious man in our office, Ericson; why, the Boss would trust him with anything." It saddened Carl to hear the insurance adjuster boom, "Oh you Tottykins!" across the room, at ten-minute intervals, like a human fog-horn on the sea of ennui. They were all so uniformly polite, so neat-minded and church-going and dull. Nearly all the girls did their hair and coquetries one exactly like another. Carl is not to be pitied. He had the pleasure of martyrdom when he heard the younger Johnson tell of Martinhurst, the Suburb Beautiful. He believed that he had reached the nadir of boredom. But he was mistaken. After simple and pleasing refreshments of the wooden-plate and paper-napkin school, Gertie announced: "Now we're going to have some stunts, and you're each to give one. I know you all can, and if anybody tries to beg off--my, what will happen----! My brother has a new one----" For the third time that month, Carl saw Ray turn his collar round and become clerical, while every one rustled with delight, including the jolly bantling clergyman. And for the fourth time he saw Gertie dance "Gather the Golden Sheaves." She appeared, shy and serious, in bloomers and flat dancing-shoes, which made her ample calves bulge the more; she started at sight of the harvest moon (and well she may have been astonished, if she did, indeed, see a harvest moon there, above the gilded buffalo horns on the unit bookcase), rose to her toes, flapped her arms, and began to gather the sheaves to her breast, with enough plump and panting energy to enable her to gather at least a quarter-section of them before the whistle blew. It was not only esthetic, but Close to the Soil. Then, to banjo accompaniment, the insurance adjuster sighed for his old Kentucky home, which Carl judged to have been located in Brooklyn. The whole crowd joined in the chorus and---- Suddenly, with a shock that made him despise himself for the cynical superiority which he had been enjoying, Carl remembered that Forrest Haviland, Tony Bean, Hank Odell, even surly Jack Ryan and the alien Carmeau, had sung "My Old Kentucky Home" on their last night at the Bagby School. He felt their beloved presences in the room. He had to fight against tears as he too joined in the chorus.... "Then weep no more, my lady."... He was beside a California poppy-field. The blossoms slumbered beneath the moon, and on his shoulder was the hand of Forrest Haviland.... He had repented. He became part of the group. He spoke kindly to Tottykins. But presently Tottykins postponed her well-advertised return to her husband and baby, and gave a ten-minute dramatic recital from Byron; and the younger Johnson sang a Swiss mountaineer song with yodels.