Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/145

Rh evening he looked his oldest. He had on his hat and his overcoat, his gloves and his fur collar. Every one else in the establishment had gone home; and he, with the keys in his hand, was ready to lock up and leave also. He often staid later than any one else, and left the keys with Mr. Canterfield, the head clerk, as he passed his house on his way home.

Mr. Tolman seemed in no hurry to go. He simply sat and thought, and increased his apparent age. The truth was he did not want to go home. He was tired of going home. This was not because his home was not a pleasant one. No single gentleman in the city had a handsomer or more comfortable suite of rooms. It was not because he felt lonely, or regretted that a wife and children did not brighten and enliven his home. He was perfectly satisfied to be a bachelor. The conditions suited him exactly. But, in spite of all this, he was tired of going home.

"I wish." said Mr. Tolman to himself, "that I could feel some interest in going home; "and then he rose and took a turn or two up and down the room; but as that did not seem to give him any more interest in the matter, he sat down again. "I wish it were necessary for me to go home," said he; "but it isn't;" and then he fell again to thinking. "What I need," he said, after a while, "is to depend more upon myself—to feel that I am necessary to myself. Just now I'm not. I'll stop going home—at least in this way. Where's the sense in envying other men, when I can have all that they have, just as well as not? And I'll have it, too," said Mr. Tolman, as he went out and