CHAPTER V 



FROM T WHARF TO FRANKLIN FIELD 



OVER 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 their 

 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, 

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

 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 

 cloud was driving past in the wind away up there. 

 Suddenly a white fleck swept into the cloud, ca- 

 reened, spread two wide wings against it, and 

 rounded a circle. Then another and another, until 

 eight herring gulls were soaring white against the 

 sullen 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- 



