Pen Pricks 



it was a giddy business, teaming. He never knew 

 when I would walk soberly past crossroads or 

 when take the bit between my teeth. Now in mat- 

 ters more prosaic, I plodded forward with de- 

 corum. You see he had learned the meaning of 

 the word and now used it as a sidewise prankish 

 nip. 



There was that article I did on the American 

 Screw Industry. He had dropped it on me sud- 

 denly because he hked the chance it offered him; 

 chimneys smirching a clear sky; the plant itself, 

 great slabs of light and shadow; the mill-stream 

 tumbling forward from obscurity in curds of 

 foam. But he had not guessed that I could 

 write so well the history of tacks and cold-cut 

 nails. And that square in a provincial suburb; 

 a dowdy little row of shops where business came 

 to life at six o'clock with the closing of the mills. 

 I had never seen it and he had had to draw for 

 me a map. Baker here and butcher there, depart- 

 ment store and notions, with the druggist's just 

 around the comer. Yet somehow, constructed 

 on such slight foimdations, it stood firm. He had 

 gone out to see in the eager fashion that he has, 



[23] 



