Boof Beats 



white teeth and touched his cap. Striving flung 

 his coat and hat up in the rack overhead and 

 dropped into seat number seventeen. 



"Sick of it, sick of it," he murmured, "of the 

 fight for money. I never cared for it anyhow." 



The train started. Striving was due in New 

 York at eleven. That afternoon he was to try a 

 disagreeable and intricate case in the Surrogate 

 Court of Appeals. No one knew it better than 

 Striving. He didn't feel up to it, but he knew he 

 would do it well. Everyone said he would do it 

 well. That was why the office had sent him. 

 What he needed, he told himself, was a rest, a 

 good long rest out of doors, away from the sight 

 of a desk. 



The train acquired speed and Striving watched 

 the moving scene; elevated trains that kept pace 

 for awhile and then little by little dropped behind ; 

 smoke-begrimed tenements, with washings that 

 swung in the November breeze, between windows, 

 from which women scantily clad leaned, calling 

 to one another across dark areas which the sun 

 never penetrated ; children playing wildly at some 

 game in the streets and alleyways. 



The city was left behind. A row of cheap 



suburban cottages followed, each with its quarter 



acre of land. Striving breathed more freely. 



They were getting into the country. The coun- 



58 



