defeat it. The one thing of which his breadth of vision seems unconscious is that men once called this same dream of a blissful world-state the New Jerusalem descended from God,' and defied the world, the flesh, and the devil to compass its defeat.

It is worth noting- though no man though no man can say what is the exact significance of the fact that poetic activity with a concurrent tendency to freedom in verse-form is likely to be synchronous with the gestation of war. Whitman's work lies well within the field of force that played about our Civil War; so also does the Transcendentalist movement in New England, which surely was a vehement attempt at putting poetry into practice. 'Free verse,' this, indeed, the freest of all and the finest!

Obviously the poetic activity of our passing hour is unusually large and varied. It is, obviously also, a little hard here, a little cold there, now too 'cosmic' and now too rigidly objective, sometimes too contentedly complacent and self-willed. Even where it is noblest and finest, as perhaps in the Vision of War, it nevertheless fails to answer the deepest cry of the soul of man. By these signs it is not yet great poetry. But, and this is the innermost joy of it, it is the plasma of which great poetry is made. Without committing ourselves too freely to any of the new poets we may delight in their achievement and look forward with certainty to the coming of others whom they mutely prophesy. "There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.'

I

Ar an unearthly hour in the morning John Scidmore sat up suddenly in his bed and remembered Julia Norris's telephone message. He rose at once, switched on the shaded light on the bureau, and looked at his watch: the minute hand had just swung past three o'clock.

Undisturbed by her husband's nocturnal prowling, Kitty Scidmore slept with almost childish naturalness. He plunged the room into darkness again and felt his way out into the hall and down the short flight of stairs to the dining-room.

The night was unusually warm. As he opened the garden window, pungent odors of dry stubble wet with a late October dew floated toward him. He leaned out and drew in a deep breath, but his attempts at calmness failed utterly.

He knew that it was absurd to fret; he might just as well go back to bed and sleep peacefully. One could not place a line of insurance at three o'clock in the morning. Upon what day had Julia Norris telephoned? Was it last Friday? Yes, he remembered now, perfectly. He had been busy with a peevish customer who haggled about a twentyfive-cent overcharge. In the midst of

the controversy, in her characteristically impulsive way, Julia Norris had rung up:

'Oh John! is that you, John? Place ten thousand dollars with the Falcon Insurance Company on my flats in the Richmond District.'

He had recognized her voice even before she gave her name. And he had been so sure he would not forget. Why, he had been so very sure that he had not troubled to make a memorandum. And to think that the excitement of arguing a twenty-five-cent overcharge should have so completely put to rout Julia Norris's order!

A sudden rage at his carelessness seized him. How he loathed his life, his work, and the soul-killing routine and cramped vision of the figurative counting-house! He switched on the light and peered into the mirror over the mantel, smiling satirically at the reflection greeting him, the reflection of plain Johnny Scidmore, insurance broker's clerk, a commonplace, rather undersized, law-abiding citizen just turning forty, whose face showed the lack of that forceful ability necessary to convert opportunity into success.

As he drew back from the glass with a shrug of disgust, the futility of his life flashed over him. He still could remember the time when he went blithely to the day's work, buoyed by youth's intangible hope of better things. But the years soon took their toll of enthusiasm, and there were days when John Scidmore went through his paces like a trick horse urged by the whip of necessity. Lately he had been worried to find how easily he was forgetting things- telephone messages, instructions from his chief, orders to place insurance. So far nothing very important had slipped by him, but now he felt quite sure that he could never trust himself again. There were many reasons why he should have remembered

Julia's Norris's orders. First, because she was his wife's friend; second, because a ten-thousand-dollar order to his credit was not an everyday occurrence; and third, because the circumstance that had overshadowed it was relatively of so little importance.

For over a week, then, Julia Norris's property had gone without insurance protection. What if it had burned up? What if it were burning up at this very moment? He sat down suddenly.

He got up again, fumbled about, and found cigarettes and a box of matches. Two cigarettes quieted him. He began to think that he was a silly fool, mooning about when he should have been sleeping. In the morning he would take an early train to San Francisco and place the line without further ado. Yes, after all, he was as silly and notional as a young schoolgirl. He put down the window, turned off the lights, and crawled upstairs to bed.

II

True to his resolve, John Scidmore took an early train to San Francisco next morning, although he could not have said why. It was as impossible to place insurance at eight-thirty as it was at three A.M., since no self-respecting insurance office opened until nine. Still there is a certain comfort in even futile activity when one has the fidgets.

It was a beautiful October morning such as often veils the Berkeley hills in faint purple and draws a soft glamour over the city of San Francisco; and as Scidmore walked briskly down the elmshaded streets of Berkeley toward the train he felt elusively happy, notwithstanding the ripples below the surface of his content.

The office-boy was taking books out of the safe when he arrived at the office. In a corner by the wash-basin one of the stenographers stood, fluffing up her

'Why, did n't you get my telephone message? I 'phoned last Tuesday. I thought I talked to you. I was sure it was your voice. Could I have rung up the wrong office?'

Her uncertainty steadied him. Unconsciously she opened a door of escape. Scidmore laid his hat on the counter. Julia Norris fluttered back to her seat and he sat down beside her.

'I suppose I've bungled things again,' she went on. Usually I leave everything to Mr. Rice, but this insurance matter I took into my own hands. I wanted you to have the business, so I left positive instructions with Mr. Rice to let me know when the next insurance policy expired. That was last Friday. I 'phoned you at once. I can't imagine'

As she rattled on, pointing an accusing finger at herself, John Scidmore grew surer and surer of his next step. There was not the faintest note of calculation in his attitude; confused and dazed he merely followed her lead.

'And you never received any policy?' he questioned. 'Not after a week? You

She shook her head. 'I forgot the whole transaction until this morning. Rice 'phoned me at eight o'clock.'

'But there may still be a chance,' Scidmore suggested, shamed by the very ease with which he was escaping. 'Perhaps another clerk got the message. I'll question them all. Or maybe you rang up the Falcon's office direct.' She laid a gloved hand on his arm as she shrugged.

He shook his head. "You can't imagine how this bothers me,' he went on. He began to feel a certain boldness, such as thieves feel when they put over a sharp trick. He wanted to prolong the discussion, to dally with danger. "To think that in trying to be of service to me you should have gone astray. I would n't have had it happen for Let me see, what was the amount of your order?'

"Ten thousand dollars.'

'Ten thousand dollars! That's a lot of money.'

"Yes,' she admitted slowly, as she moved toward the door. 'I'm pretty comfortable, but nobody likes to throw money into the street.'

He thrust his hands into his pockets in an effort at nonchalance. He could feel his temples throbbing. But his confusion cleared before Julia Norris's unruffled smile, deepening a growing sense of irritation. She was not greatly concerned, first, because she did not have to be, and second, because her faith in his integrity was unshaken. Her complacency and trustfulness enraged him. What was ten thousand dollars to her?

In the midst of his musings, her voice, curiously remote, roused him.

'I'm going to have lunch with Kitty,' she said, almost gayly.

'Lunch with Kitty?' he echoed. Then, floundering with mingled con

John Scidmore questioned all the clerks as they entered the office. Had any one received a telephone message about a week ago from Mrs. Julia Norris? He was playing his game so earnestly that he would not have been surprised to find somebody acknowledging the transaction. The manager came in at ten o'clock; Scidmore even presented the case to him: Mrs. Julia Norris, a client of his, had telephoned an order for insurance over a week ago. Nobody remembered it. The property to be insured had burned up. Of course, Mrs. Norris might have been mistaken (she admitted as much), but there was just a chance

The manager, instantly interested, adjusted his glasses. A ten-thousanddollar line neglected! Incredible! He began to investigate personally, calling up one clerk after another, while Scidmore listened like a highwayman, tempting chance from a spirit of sheer bravado. Nobody remembered, even under the most searching cross-examination. The private exchange operator, who was usually very keen about such matters, could not place the call.

Then came a discussion of how to prevent such a lapse should one occur. Scidmore sat at the manager's desk,

quite the hero of the hour-a very important personage, whose ten-thousand-dollar client had come to grief. It was years since he had figured in a question of office policy. Gradually the uniqueness of his position pushed Julia Norris and her loss into a hazy background.

He returned to his routine work with a gay spirit. Several times during the morning the manager called him for further conference and inquiry. Finally a letter was drafted to Mrs. Julia Norris, to the effect that the California Insurance Brokers' Company regretted exceedingly to inform her that upon closer examination no trace could be found of her telephone message. They could only conclude that she inadvertently had rung up the wrong office. Inquiry at the Falcon Company's office, however, developed that no such insurance had been placed, even by a rival firm. They hoped that this unfortunate occurrence would not stand in the way of other favors at her hands, and so forth.

John Scidmore signed the letter with a flourish.

All morning the fiction of Julia Norris's mistake still persisted. Why had she not taken greater precautions? The idea of telephoning in a line of insurance and not inquiring the name of the person who took the message! Common sense would dictate such a course. He began to feel abused, as if Julia Norris had betrayed him in some way.

IV

It was not until John Scidmore had scrambled aboard the ferryboat on his way home and sat himself down in his usual place, under the pilot-house, that his inflated spirits began to collapse. The afternoon had been spent in a mad rush of business, an avalanche of petty orders and details such

as periodically afflicts an insurance broker's office.

The sense of security which had enveloped him all day fell away before a vague uneasiness. Before an audience, he had played his part spiritedly; without the spur of interested auditors his performance lagged. There was an element of excitement in serving moral fiction to unsuspecting listeners, but hoodwinking himself proved a boresome task. The boldest highwayman had a cleaner record: at least such an outlaw made bold plays and took great chances. He had not risked so much as his little finger on his enterprise, and his victim's cheek was still warm with the kiss of betrayal. Lies, thievery, murder - one by one these suggestions of outlawry mentally passed in review and sank into insignificance before this sinister word betrayal. In all the calendar of human weaknesses, John Scidmore could recall none that served so contemptible an end as betrayal. And he, John Scidmore, had been guilty of this crowning meanness.

-

If the memory of Julia Norris's confidence stabbed him, what of the attitude of his superiors at the office? They had never even thought of questioning him. As he looked back on the events of the morning he was appalled. It seemed that all these years he had built up barriers of moral responsibility only to see them swept away before a freshet of fears.

A tramping of feet warned him that the boat was swinging into the slip. He rose mechanically. The exertion of following the scrambling crowd and finding himself a seat on the train interrupted his self-accusation. By the time he was comfortably settled again, he mentally had begun his defense.

Why should he make such an absurd fuss over confessing his fault to Julia Norris? She was rich; her husband had left her a cool million. Ten thousand

dollars did n't matter, and besides, she was Kitty's friend. Had he the right to purchase a quiet conscience at the expense of Kitty's pride?

What had he given Kitty in the fifteen years of their wedded life? Had he played the game boldly and well? Did she hold her head high at the mention of his name? No, he had fallen short of his own standards. How much more must he have fallen short of her hopes for him. And now he was lacking the courage to swallow his medicine. He was ready to whimper and whine at the load which his own inefficiency had forced upon his conscience. He argued that strong men made bold plays and damned the consequence; in other words, they took a chance. But his soul was tricking itself out in a dramatic subterfuge. What he really had discovered was something to excuse his weakness, and this something loomed up conveniently in the person of Kitty Scidmore, his wife.

V

When Scidmore arrived home, he went directly to his room and closed the door. The thought of meeting Kitty troubled him. But after he had slipped on an old coat and freshened up, he felt better.

At the dinner table he noticed a tired, pinched look about his wife's mouth. Julia Norris was every day as old as his wife, but time had dealt kindly with her. Her face was still fresh and rosy; there was not even a glint of gray in her hair. Resentment began to move him, resentment at Julia Norris, at her fortune, at her friendship for his wife, at every detail connected with his memory of her.

Kitty began to talk. Scidmore sat silent, crumbling his bread. Finally the dread subject came to life. Kitty looked up and said,