light from the station-agent's window,—N. Y. Central, Père Marquette, Wabash, Erie, Boston and Maine,—shoes and groceries and hardware, structural-steel, cement—all the thousand things needed every day to keep the wheels of daily material life moving, all made, bought and sold, shipped and handled by men like him. All necessary honest goods, all necessary honest work … but that couldn't be all of life! The train pounded off, the silence of the night closed in on him, and in that silence he heard the echo of those appalling sobs, and the slam of the door. Queer thing, human life was, wasn't it? Think of poor Mr. Gates paying that price, and very likely for something he didn't care so much about when he got it. It wasn't the price you paid, that bothered Neale. If it were something worth your while, you were willing to pay all you had. But to pay so much, just to make money for Neale Crittenden … he couldn't see it that way. He'd have a smoke on it anyhow.
As he filled his pipe it came to him that once before he had felt the same aching restlessness, so intense that it was pain. That was the time when he had gone stale. He'd been put out of the game, and had sat on the side-lines eating his heart out. He was there again, gone stale, out of the game. He had the strength, he had the speed, now as then. Why was it he stood outside the game? Other men were giving their souls to it. Maybe he was a quitter, after all. There had certainly been quitting or something the matter in his relations with Martha … how empty life was without Martha.… But he was mighty glad he wasn't going to marry her.
He was a fine specimen anyhow!
"Well now, well now," he shook himself together, "let's consider all this. What's the best thing to do when you go stale and have a slump?" Atkins had showed him what to do that other time. He had actually profited by it in the end, profited immensely by being temporarily out of the game, so that he could consider and understand the real inwardness of what it was all about.
Why, perhaps that was what he needed to do now, pull out
