I felt a touch on my shoulder, and almost screamed. It was St. Clair Mowbray. I don’t like him much, but any companion was a friend just then, so we walked along together, he chatting and I silent.
As we passed the Metropolitan Opera House a line of people stretched from the box-office out into the street.
“What fools,” said Mowbray, “they must want tickets damned badly to do that. Don’t they look like a chain gang?”
“More like the bread line at Fleischmann’s,” I answered gloomily.
“Yes—but better bred.”
Mowbray chuckled approvingly at his sally.
I parted with him at the next corner feeling his wit would not appeal to me that evening.
IV.
The Club disappointed me. I thought companionship would relieve, but it only served to aggravate my loneliness. Everything talked about seemed local and trivial, and everybody appeared to sail under a different flag of interest. So after enduring this as long as possible I wandered out, walking down town for no other reason than to be among people I didn’t know and who didn’t know me—a hair-of-the-dog-that-bit-you cure for loneliness.