At six o'clock, I was left alone in the office. Tamworth went home; and so did the typists and clerks. It occurred to me that I might utilize a half-hour or so by working upon my _Lives of Great Men_, the thread of which I had lost. I was hopelessly out of tune with lives of great men. Lives of great women--the great women of the kitchen--had lured me astray. Goethe was obscured by Mrs. Potzenheimer; Molière lurked beneath the shade of Birdie Miriam McCaffrey. I found it quite impossible to concentrate my thoughts. They were diffuse, and unresponsive. They wobbled; and I abandoned my task. Instead, I donned my evening clothes, and made myself look as presentable as I could. I was alarmingly hungry, and could not repress a sensation of furtive delight at the thought that we were to dine at a restaurant, where nobody would say "Ga-ga!" and I should not have to call the waiter Miriam. We would begin steadily and industriously with oysters, and plow our way methodically through everything, until we landed safe and sound, at coffee. Man proposes. At a quarter to seven I put on my overcoat, and went to the window to wave to Letitia as soon as I saw her approach. She was generally punctuality itself, and prided herself upon it. As time dragged itself slowly along, however, and the slim little figure I knew so well was not to be detected in the Twenty-third crowd, I began to get nervous and apprehensive. Perhaps there had been an accident on the elevated. I thought up all sorts of catastrophes, and when the clock struck seven I had worked myself into a distressing state of perturbation. Something had assuredly happened, and I made up my mind to wait five minutes longer before telephoning. If Letitia had left the house--as she must have done--it was not much use telephoning. Certainly Birdie--I always thought of her aggressively as Birdie--would know nothing about answering telephone rings. Moreover, she was probably vividly engaged in entertaining "me sister, Mrs. O'Flaherty, of Tree-mont." Seven-twenty, and no Letitia. Even if she came, we should have but forty minutes to devote to dinner. Food, however, was rapidly losing all interest for me. I grew cold as the minutes passed. A sense of powerlessness overcame me. At last I could stand it no longer, and going to the telephone I rang up my own address, and then stood, nervously shivering, until I got it. "This is Archie," I said tremblingly. "It is I--Archie. Who is that at the 'phone?" A moment's pause, then: "Birdie--I mean Miriam. You are Archie?" My worst fears seemed about to be realized. I felt like the pain-racked husband in the little play _At the Telephone_. I scarcely dared to listen. "This is Mr. Fairfax, Mrs. McCaffrey. What has happened? Tell me quickly." "Letitia's awful sick, and the doctor's coming to see what the matter is."