Page:Harold Macgrath--The girl in his house.djvu/50

. Minus the green streak, his sensations were almost identical. He could walk, think, act, but all with a consciousness that what he did was not real. Indeed, the actual thunderbolt was preferable to this figurative one. To go to bed fairly rich, and to wake up facing the possibilities of utter financial ruin!—helpless to avert it, totally incompetent to build anew! But Armitage was a brave young man, a philosopher who had long since recognized the uselessness of whining. He had at least learned in his wanderings that opportunities were not resuscitable. Dazedly, but pluckily, he started forth to find out how this ruin had been accomplished, vaguely hoping that his good luck would pull him through, that the ruin was not utter.

At nine o'clock he entered the Concord apartments, an old-fashioned building situated in an old-fashioned part of the town, and asked to see the janitor, aware that janitors were easily approachable and generally inclined toward verbosity, which was an interesting sidelight on his knowledge of human beings.

"I wish to make some inquiries regarding