Meanwhile, paunchy with wind and wetness, unmannerly clouds came smoking out of the blackened west.  Rumbling, they drew on.  Then from cloud to cloud dizzy amazements of white fire staggered, crackled and boomed on to the assault; the doors of the winds were opened; the tanks of deluge were unbottomed; and the storm took the town.  So, presently, Noble noticed that it was raining and decided to go home.

With an idea that he was fulfilling his customary duties, he locked the doors of the two inner rooms, dropped the keys gently into a wastebasket, and passing by an umbrella which stood in a corner, went out to the corridor, and thence stepped into the street of whooping rain.

Here he became so practical as to turn up his collar; and, substantially aided by the wind at his back, he was not long in leaving the purlieus of commerce behind him for Julia’s Street.  Other people lived on this street—­he did, himself, for that matter; and, in fact, it was the longest street in the town; moreover, it had an official name with which the word “Julia” was entirely unconnected; but for Noble Dill (and probably for Newland Sanders and for some others in age from nineteen to sixty) it was “Julia’s Street” and no other.

It was a tumultuous street as Noble splashed along the sidewalk.  Incredibly elastic, the shade-trees were practising calisthenics, though now and then one outdid itself and lost a branch; thunder and lightning romped like loosed scandal; rain hissed upon the pavement and capered ankle-high.  It was a storm that asked to be left to itself for a time, after giving fair warning that the request would be made; and Noble and the only other pedestrian in sight had themselves to blame for getting caught.

This other pedestrian was some forty or fifty yards in advance of Noble and moved in the same direction at about the same gait.  He wore an old overcoat, running with water; the brim of his straw hat sagged about his head, so that he appeared to be wearing a bucket; he was a sodden and pathetic figure.  Noble himself was as sodden; his hands were wet in his very pockets; his elbows seemed to spout; yet he spared a generous pity for the desolate figure struggling on before him.

All at once Noble’s heart did something queer within his wet bosom.  He recognized that figure, and he was not mistaken.  Except the One figure, and those of his own father and mother and three sisters, this was the shape that Noble would most infallibly recognize anywhere in the world and under any conditions.  In spite of the dusk and the riot of the storm, Noble knew that none other than Mr. Atwater splashed before him.