He felt that he must think. He ordered another piece of pie. He wished he hadn't said so much to Humphrey. Would he ever learn to control the spoken word? Probably not. He sighed. And ate. He couldn't very well go back to the office. Not like this--in defeat. All that work, too I Life, work, friendship, all the realities seemed to be slipping from his grasp. His thoughts were drifting off into a haze. It was an old familiar mood. It had come often during his teens. Not so much lately; but he was as helpless before it as he had been at eighteen, when he finally drifted aimlessly out of his class at the high school.
In those days, it had been his habit to wander along the beach, sit on a breakwater, let life and love and duty drift by beyond his reach. Thither he headed now by a back street. Too many people he knew along Simpson Street. Besides, he might be thrown face to face with the old man.
At the corner of Filbert Avenue he met the editor and proprietor of the _Gleaner_. He inclined his head with unconscious severity and would have passed on.
But Robert A. McGibbon came to a halt, smiled in a thin strained fashion, and glanced curiously from Henry's face to the tightly rolled manuscript in his hand and back to the face.
Henry wanted to be let alone. But he had never deliberately snubbed anybody in his life. He couldn't. So he, too, came to a stop.
He found himself, in his turn, looking Mr McGibbon over. The man was just a little seedy. He had a hand up, rubbing the back of his head under the tipped-down straw hat, and Henry noted the shiny black surface of his sleeve. He had a freckled, thinly alert face, a little pinched. His hair was straight and came down raggedly about ears and collar. Behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, small, sharp eyes, very keen, appeared to be darting this way and that, restlessly noting everything within their range of vision.
'Things going well over at the _Voice_ office?' Henry was silent. He couldn't lie. 'Not going so well, eh? That's too bad. Anything special up?'
'No,' said Henry, finding his voice untrustworthy; 'nothing special.'
'What you doing now? Anything much?' Henry shook his head. 'Taking a little walk, perhaps.'
'Been thinking a little about you lately. Wondering if you were happy in your work over there.' Henry compressed his lips. 'Did you write the Business Men's Picnic story?' Henry was silent. 'Pretty fair job, I thought.'