The Brook 



the saddle, a nice depth of chest, a narrow waist, 

 and lean flat legs. Even years at a desk where 

 electric lights burned half the day had not spoiled 

 his gift of birth. His skin too, was hard still, and 

 if one looked closely, — most people did at Striving 

 — one saw it had once been a deep reddish bronze. 



Striving yawned again, then opened the leather 

 case at his side and extracted a bundle of papers 

 and a printed brief some hundred and twenty 

 pages long. He glanced at the latter casually, 

 disinterestedly at first, and then gradually, with 

 an effort, forced himself to a final careful perusal. 



Suddenly he became aware that the train was 

 running more and more slowly and he looked up 

 with an expression of annoyance. Finally it 

 stopped with a groan and whistling of released air 

 brakes at a small station the shed of which pro- 

 jected over the train and made further reading 

 impracticable. Striving drew out his watch and 

 noted that they were twenty minutes behind the 

 schedule, threw the printed brief of the Surrogate 

 Court of Appeals ignominiously upon the floor of 

 the car and shut his eyes. When at last he opened 

 them the train had moved out of the station and 

 the car was light again, but he did not pick up the 

 brief. He saw that someone had taken the chair 

 ahead of him. It had been empty before. Over 

 the top appeared a derby hat, that was all. It 

 61 



