THE DOORMAT
I
From the window of his office on the eighteenth floor of the Knickerbocker Building, Barney Creighton gazed wearily, dreamily out over the light-dotted Hudson. Down below, gangs of workmen were jumping about like busy ants, working on the structure of the new Adams Building. The sound of the riveting and hammering floated up to his ears in a particularly jarring manner.
"New York is work mad, money mad!" he cried petulantly. "What good is progress, success, money if they bring neither happiness nor peace?"
With a sigh of unutterable weariness, he turned back to his desk. He was very tired, more tired than he had ever been before in all his life. Every bone in his body ached and seemed to be moaning in plaintive misery. Even his funny-bone seemed to have lost its sense of humor. He leaned far back in his great leather chair and stretched his arms above his head. Outside a sluggish, misty rain was falling and everything looked dark and gloomy. The aspect of the sombre night seemed even to have reflected into the offices of Creighton, Sears & Co. A single electric light broke the dense pall of blackness; but instead of
