CHAPTER V 



O 



FROM T WHARF TO FRANKLIN FIELD 



VER and over I read the list of saints and 

 martyrs on the wall across the street, think- 

 ing' dully how men used to suffer for their 

 religion, and how, nowadays, they suffer for thei 

 teeth. For I was reclining in a dentist's chair, blink 

 ing through the window at the Boston Public Li- 

 brary, seeing nothing, however, nothing but the 

 tiles on the roof, and the names of Luther, Wesley, 

 i Wycliffe, graven on the granite wall, while the den-. 

 i tist burred inside of my cranium and bored down to 

 my toes for nerves. So, at least, it seemed. 



By and by my gaze wandered blankly off to the : 

 square patch of sky in sight above the roof. A black i 

 cloud was driving past in the wind away up there.! 

 Suddenly a white fleck swept into the cloud, ca-*j 

 greened, spread two wide wings against it, and 

 ) rounded a circle. Then another and another, unti 

 I eight herring gulls were soaring white against the 

 jsullen cloud in that little square of sky high over 

 /the roofs of Boston. 



Was this the heart of a vast city ? Could I be in 

 a dentist's chair? There was no doubt about the 

 chair; but how quickly the red-green roof of the Li- 



