One moment yet of sententiousness and the story moves.

In the Big City large and sudden things happen.  You round a corner and thrust the rib of your umbrella into the eye of your old friend from Kootenai Falls.  You stroll out to pluck a Sweet William in the park—­and lo! bandits attack you—­you are ambulanced to the hospital—­you marry your nurse; are divorced—­get squeezed while short on U. P. S. and D. O. W. N. S.—­stand in the bread line—­marry an heiress, take out your laundry and pay your club dues—­seemingly all in the wink of an eye.  You travel the streets, and a finger beckons to you, a handkerchief is dropped for you, a brick is dropped upon you, the elevator cable or your bank breaks, a table d’hote or your wife disagrees with you, and Fate tosses you about like cork crumbs in wine opened by an un-feed waiter.  The City is a sprightly youngster, and you are red paint upon its toy, and you get licked off.

John Hopkins sat, after a compressed dinner, in his glove-fitting straight-front flat.  He sat upon a hornblende couch and gazed, with satiated eyes, at Art Brought Home to the People in the shape of “The Storm” tacked against the wall.  Mrs. Hopkins discoursed droningly of the dinner smells from the flat across the hall.  The flea-bitten terrier gave Hopkins a look of disgust, and showed a man-hating tooth.

Here was neither poverty, love, nor war; but upon such barren stems may be grafted those essentials of a complete life.

John Hopkins sought to inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence.  “Putting a new elevator in at the office,” he said, discarding the nominative noun, “and the boss has turned out his whiskers.”

“You don’t mean it!” commented Mrs. Hopkins.

“Mr. Whipples,” continued John, “wore his new spring suit down to-day.  I liked it fine It’s a gray with—­” He stopped, suddenly stricken by a need that made itself known to him.  “I believe I’ll walk down to the corner and get a five-cent cigar,” he concluded.

John Hopkins took his hat and picked his way down the musty halls and stairs of the flat-house.

The evening air was mild, and the streets shrill with the careless cries of children playing games controlled by mysterious rhythms and phrases.  Their elders held the doorways and steps with leisurely pipe and gossip.  Paradoxically, the fire-escapes supported lovers in couples who made no attempt to fly the mounting conflagration they were there to fan.

The corner cigar store aimed at by John Hopkins was kept by a man named Freshmayer, who looked upon the earth as a sterile promontory.

Hopkins, unknown in the store, entered and called genially for his “bunch of spinach, car-fare grade.”  This imputation deepened the pessimism of Freshmayer; but he set out a brand that came perilously near to filling the order.  Hopkins bit off the roots of his purchase, and lighted up at the swinging gas jet.  Feeling in his pockets to make payment, he found not a penny there.