The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-11-24

apSed about 2 week before. Rob
 had not renewed the policy because it's renewal would have meant adding
 several hundred to his already seri-
 ous deficit and. as he put it. it
 seemed to him that everything that
 could happen to that job had already
 happened. But now the last stupen-
 dous, malicious catastrophe threat
 ened him. Both of them knew when
 he said gOOd-by that morning and
 hurried out to catch his train that he
 was facing ruin. His wife begged
 him to let her go with him, at least
 she would be some one to talk to on that interminable journey; but he
 he said that was absurd: and. any
 way, he had a lot of thinking to do. So he started off alone.
 At the station before he left he
 tried to get the Rockford bank build
 ing on the telephone. He got Rock ford and tried for five minutes to make a connection with his superin- tendent' $ telephone in the bank building. until the operators voice came to him over the wire: T tell
 you, you cant get that building. mister It's burning downl'
 How do you know?' he bcsought her.
 60 T just went past there and I seen it. her voice came back at him He got on the train. At first he
 felt nothing but queer dizzy
 vacuum where his brain should have
 been; the landscape outside the win dows jumbted together like a night
 mare landscape thrown up on mov-
 ing picture screen. For fifty miles
 he merely sat rig.dIv stflI. but in
 reality he was plUnEiug down like a
 drowning man to the very bottom Of despair And then, like the drown
 ing man, he began to come up to the
 surface again. The instinct for self preservation stirred in him and broke the grip of that hypnatfzina despair. At first slowly and pain
 fully, but at last with quickening
 facility, he began to think. to plan. Stations went past: a man he knew
 spoke to him and then walked on.
 staring: but he was deaf and blind.
 lie was planning for the future.
 Already he had pIumbed. measured,
 and put behind him the fact of the
 fire; what he occupied himself with
 now was what he could save from
 the ashes to make a new start with.
 And he told me afterwards that
 actually, at the end of two hours of
 the liVeIiest thinking he had ever
 done in his life. he began 10 enjoy
 himself! His fighting blood began
 to jingle; his head steadied and grew cool: hs mind reached out and ex- aained every aspect of his stupen- dous failure, not to indulge himself in the weakness of regret. but to find out the surest and quickest way to get on his feet again. Figuring on the margins of timetables. going over the contracts he had in hand, weigh ing every asset he possessed in the world, he worked out in minute de tail q plan to save his credit and his l future. When he got off the train at Boston he was man that had already begun life over again: he was a general that was about to make the first move in q IoEg cam paign, every move and counter-move l of which he carried in his brain. Even as he crossed the station he was reheaTsing the speech he was gotUF to make at the meeting of his creditors he intended to hold that afternoon. Yhens as he hastened toward a telephone booth, he ran
 into a newsboy. 4 headline caught his eye. He snatched at the paper, read the headlines, standing there in
 the middle of the room. And then he suddenly sat down on the nearest bench, weak and shaking.
 "On the front page of the paper was a half-Dage picture of tha Rock ford bank building with the flames curling up against it's west wall. and underneath it a caption that he read over and over before he could grasp
 what it meant to him. The White
 E41TaT1Ta had mt I1ry-y4c7- 54, F.1+ the last it had turned into a good elephant, for 1t had not only not burned but it had stopped the prog
 ress Of what threatened to be very disastrous COufagratjOn according to 9 jubilant despatch from Rockford Two weeks later he turned the Elephant over to the owners. finished a good, worl1manIike job from roof to foundation piers He had lost money on it; for months he had worked overtime his courage, his ingenuity,
 his nerve, and his strength. But
 that did not matter. He had de livered the goods"
 Mrs. Trask pushed back her chair and walked to the west window. A strange quiet had fallen upon the skyscraper now; the wOrImen had gone down the ladders. the steam rlFGteTS HIQ ceased EleJT tapping
 Mrs. Trask opened the window and leaned out a little.
 Behind her the three women at the tea table gathered up thir furs in silence. Cornelia Blair looked re ieVed and prepared to go on to dinner at another club, Mrs BuIIen avoided Mrs. Van Vechten's eye In
 her rosy face faint lines had traced themselves, as if vaguely some new perceptiVeness troubled her She
 looked at her wrist watch and rose
 from the table hastily.
 T must run along" she said "I like to get home before John does. You going my way, SaIy?''
 Mrs Van Vechten shook her head
 absantly There was d frOwn be tween her dark brows, but as she stood fastening her furs her eyes
 went to the west window, with an
 expression in them that was almost
 "lsttlIl- For an instant she looked as fl she were going over to the win dow beside Mary Trask; then she
 gathered up her gloves and huff and
 went out without a word.
 Mary TrasE was unaware Of her going She had forgotten the room behind her and her friends at the tea table, as well az the other women drifting in from the aEjoining room.
 She was cOn-cnpIaff u-7+T |7ar