He opened the door cautiously and peered within. All was silent. On the table in the reception room lay still open the album with which the girl had amused herself while she waited, and over a couch—oh, joy supreme!—there was flung an Indian blanket. He caught it up and wrapped it about him; and the madness left him. Such as it was, he was clothed. Still cautiously, however, he advanced to the studio. All was quiet there, but beyond he could hear water running, and the careful handling of photographers’ plates. Mr. Booth, erstwhile of Vienna, was within and busy. It irked the sergeant profoundly that to such unworthy refuge he was driven for shelter, but he squared his shoulders and advanced. Then suddenly he heard footsteps in the outer room, footsteps that advanced deliberately and relentlessly. Wild fear shook him again. He looked round him frantically, and then sought refuge. In a corner behind a piece of scenery which was intended to show the sitter in an Italian garden, Sergeant Gray of the ——th Division sought shameful sanctuary. Somewhat later in the day the general, having a broiled squab and mushrooms under glass in a window at the best restaurant in the city, put on his glasses and looked out over the surging tide in the brilliant sunlight of the street. Just opposite him, moving sedately, was a group of soldiers. “I wish you’d tell me,” said the general testily to the aide-de-camp whose particular joy it was to lunch with him, “what the deuce those fellows are doing in slickers on a day like this.” “No accounting for the vagaries of enlisted men, sir,” returned the aide, ordering a _demi-tasse_. IV At that exact moment the elevator man, having a moment’s leisure after the lunch rush, made his way back along the corridor where he had left a wild-eyed refugee. All was quiet. In the office of the National Asphalt Company the clicking of typewriters showed that no fleeing soldier, seeking sanctuary and a pair of trousers, had upset the day’s pavements. Dolls and Wigs was calm. Coat Fronts remained inadequate and still. He wandered back, his face twisted in a dry grin. Then suddenly from Booth, Photographer, he heard a wild yell. This was followed by the crash of a heavy body, a number of smothered oaths and a steady softish thud that sounded extremely like the impact of fists on flesh. The elevator man opened the door of Booth, Photographer’s, anteroom and stuck his head in. The studio beyond showed something on the floor that stirred in the wrapping of an Indian blanket, while stepping across it and on it a mad thing in undergarments and a service hat was delivering blows at something unseen.