"Let's go to Gimbel's first," she said.

But the other wanted to start in Lord and Taylor's.

They whisked away debating this.

And I went soon—through the leaden atmosphere, on the black and slippery pavement.

The people were there in the office ahead of me.

Mr. So-and-so. Mrs. So-and-so. Miss So-and-so.

The nurse was there, too.

It was where we had come in. Where we all do. Where we leave.

I sat, batting the drops from my trouser cuffs, smelling the damp feathers of the anxious poultry.