Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/121



To his amazement Paul discovered that his Wall Street experiment was providing him with more amusement than any recognized form of diversion he had ever practised. In the course of his rounds, ambling from office to office, from bank to bank, he encountered familiar faces everywhere. He was greeted with a hearty Hello, Paul! almost as frequently as he would have been at the country club or on an opening night at the Follies. He had previously formed no conception of the vast number of men of his acquaintance who laboured in the city. Through recent observation of these old friends under conditions new to him, he was beginning to understand why so many pretty, young women who were married to elderly men found it agreeable to occupy themselves with interior decorating or to assume positions as clerks in bookshops. In business, apparently, one met all the people one knew without the disadvantages inherent in the home. Between commercial transactions, vividly exciting in themselves, one listened to all the gossip of the town. Most of these boys were well provided with Orkney, Booth's, and Bacardi. Late in the afternoon, the cocktail shaker tinkled as incessantly as