The wind blew and blew. It flapped across the river and disported itself up through the town, shaking and tearing at things—gates, chimneys, and wire-hung smokestacks. It shrieked and roared through alleys and around corners, and at last it careened up Main Street, on the very stroke of midnight. There it contended with an uncertain-minded person, whom it found trying to navigate.
This was Mr. Chester Van Nesten, and he was supposed (by himself only, for no one else on earth knew anything at all about it) to be going somewhere. Not home, however, for Mr. Van Nesten was opposed to going home in dark and windy weather at twelve o’clock at night. “M’ dear,” he had said impressively when he thought of home, “lodge meet’n—in-itiation—unfit s’ciety la’ies!” And that, several times repeated, seemed to clinch the argument.
Having formed a resolution not to go to his home until such time as the streets and buildings, which whirled about him so erratically, should find themselves once more in their proper positions, he decided to go to his office and there spend the night.
At length, after a series of wonderful tacks, he succeeded in steering up to the darkened building in which were situated the offices of the firm of Hidgepit & Van Nesten.
Pausing before the stairway entrance of the old building, Mr. Van Nesten rattled at the door-knob.
“Locked!” he muttered as he fumbled uncertainly in his pockets.
The keys were forthcoming in due time, and then, in a spasmodic manner, he applied himself to the task of opening the door. He succeeded. Then, closing the door after him, he slouched and stumbled along till he encountered a staircase. Mr. Van Nesten paused to rest and consider this staircase, and then, breathing very hard, he clutched an invisible bannister and began by painful degrees to ascend.
Hidgepit & Van Nesten’s office was on the second floor, near the center of the building. Hidgepit & Van Nesten’s composing-room being in front and Hidgepit & Van Nesten’s bindery in the rear. Mr. Van Nesten arrived at last at the office. He stumbled in and endeavored to light the gas. But he had no matches—none—and after solemnly expressing appreciation of this mystery, he groped about in the dark for a time, thumping himself uncertainly against things, till he found a certain small leather-covered couch or lounge that reposed in a corner of the room with its head against a big iron safe. Mr. Van Nesten, breathing audible relief, sat down to rest.
His father-in-law and senior partner, Mr. Hidgepit, owned this lounge, and was in the habit of reclining on it daily (Sundays excepted) after lunch, while he meditated and encouraged digestion.
Van Nesten was very well satisfied, then, and sat quite still for a few moments while he contemplated the equity of things. He removed his coat and hat, but, finding no place to put them, he held them for a moment and then flung them from him. He endeavored to consider the iniquity of his coat and hat—and it ended by his head falling forward again, and then he dropped completely over and went sound asleep on the couch.