A Husband by Proxy

Produced by Al Haines
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Copyright, 1909, by
Desmond FitzGerald, Inc.
A Husband by Proxy
With the hum of New York above, below, and all about him, stirring his pulses and prodding his mental activities, Jerold Garrison, expert criminologist, stood at the window of his recently opened office, looking out upon the roofs and streets of the city with a new sense of pride and power in his being.
New York at last!
He was here—unknown and alone, it was true—but charged with an energy that he promised Manhattan should feel.
He was almost penniless, with his office rent, his licenses, and other expenses paid, but he shook his fist at the city, in sheer good nature and confidence in his strength, despite the fact he had waited a week for expected employment, and nothing at present loomed upon the horizon.
His past, in a small Ohio town, was behind him. He blotted it out without regret—or so at least he said to himself—even as to all the gilded hopes which had once seemed his all upon earth. If his heart was not whole, no New York eye should see its wounds—and the healing process had begun.
He was part of the vast machine about him, the mighty brain, as it were, of the great American nation.
He paced the length of his room, and glanced at the door. The half-painted sign on the frosted glass was legible, reversed, as the artist had left it: