bargains that came in to-day:

SILVER GROVE.--Cute four-room California bungalow, a.m.i., garage, dandy
shade tree, swell neighborhood, handy car line. $3700, $780 down and
balance liberal, Babbitt-Thompson terms, cheaper than rent.

DORCHESTER.--A corker! Artistic two-family house, all oak trim, parquet
floors, lovely gas log, big porches, colonial, HEATED ALL-WEATHER
GARAGE, a bargain at $11,250.


Dictation over, with its need of sitting and thinking instead of
bustling around and making a noise and really doing something, Babbitt
sat creakily back in his revolving desk-chair and beamed on Miss McGoun.
He was conscious of her as a girl, of black bobbed hair against demure
cheeks. A longing which was indistinguishable from loneliness enfeebled
him. While she waited, tapping a long, precise pencil-point on the
desk-tablet, he half identified her with the fairy girl of his dreams.
He imagined their eyes meeting with terrifying recognition; imagined
touching her lips with frightened reverence and--She was chirping,
"Any more, Mist' Babbitt?" He grunted, "That winds it up, I guess," and
turned heavily away.

For all his wandering thoughts, they had never been more intimate than
this. He often reflected, "Nev' forget how old Jake Offutt said a wise
bird never goes love-making in his own office or his own home. Start
trouble. Sure. But--"

In twenty-three years of married life he had peered uneasily at every
graceful ankle, every soft shoulder; in thought he had treasured them;