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 was now his custom to sit by the open window.

He would look out into the mean, cramped streets, at the jerry-built houses, and up at the high, sharp-contoured sky, which seemed to be always packed with dirty clouds. Then he would pity himself, and hate the rest of the world.

He despised the present. Yet he clutched at it with both hands, and was surprised and irritated because he could not get away from the past.

And the tale of the past, the shame of it, was hot and acrid in his brain.

That's why he sat by the window. That's why he soaked his ears and his soul in the terrible, muffled noise of the great city—those sounds of death and hate, of love and joy, and the sharp drumbeats of thousand-armed business. At least, they spelled a living, pulsing world. There were men there, and women—and in a measure they com-