The Day of Days

nd hating it simultaneously and with equal ferocity, for its very shabbiness) P. Sybarite sought out a pipe old and disreputable enough to be a comfort to

th the débris of a long, hard winter. Familiarity, however, had rendered P. Sybarite immune to the miasma of melan

d in reality distilled a subtle poison into the little man's humour. For in spite of his embattled incredulity and the clear reasoning with which

erhaps Molly Lessing of the glove counter really was one an

d past performances if, despairing of gaining control of his ward's money by urging her into unwelcome matrimo

he less quite plausible; a thing had happened, w

imately for ten years; use had made him callous to its shortcomings; but he was not yet so far gone that he could forget how unwholesome and depressing it must seem to one accustomed to better things.

had summoned P. Sybarite-too late. The double front room on the same floor harboured an amiable couple whose sempiternal dissensions only his tact and persistence ever served to still. The other hall-bedroom had housed for many years a dipsomaniac whose periodic orgies had cost P. Sybarite many a night of bedside vigil. On the floor below lived a maiden lady whose quenchless hopes still centred about his amiable

of him all those many nights through which he had lain wakeful, in impotent mutiny against the outrageous circumstances that made him a prisoner there. Its walls had muted the sighs in which the desires of youth had been spent. Its floor matting was worn threadbare with the

witness to this truth: the shabby tin alarm clock on the battered bureau was one of a dynasty that had roused him at six in the morning with unfailing regularity three hundred and sixty-five times per year (Sundays were too rare in his calendar and too precious to be wasted abed). From an iron hook

ten years. Such was the effect of life in this melancholy shelter for the homeless wage-slave. He was no lonely victim. In his term

ht, for all one knew to the contrary, be Marian Blessington aft

be done to

ite could compass: he was as inef

ouncing dinner. Sighing, P. Sybarite rose and knocked the ashes delicately

f ham-and-beans. He sat on the landlady's right, and was reluctant to hurt her feelings or incur her displeasure. Besides, he was hungry: be

f a dozen chairs away. P. Sybarite couldn't see her save by craning

as occasionally manifested through the medium of giggles and guffaws. P. Sybarite envied them: h

her established at a desk in the basement hallway. Pausing, he delivered unto her the major portion of his week's wage. Se

dest supper after the theatre; and knew he dared not-

by the flame-tipped wand of a belated lamplighter, bourgeoned spasmodically like garish flowers of the metropolitan night. Across the way gas-lit windows glowed like squares on some great, blurred checker-board. The roadway teemed with shrieking children. Somewhere-near at hand-a pianola lost its temper and whaled the everlasting daylights out of an inoffensive

Spring P. Sybarite had watc

He felt quite sure that the realists were right

njoy it. Such silly romantical nonsense was out of tune with the immortal

and personal grouch. Between them they manufactured an atmosphere

iss Lessing appeared, and cha