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By Root 8937 0

and rich. In the taxicab Mary told her that she had to lend her the money to have an abortion. Ada had a crying fit and said of course she'd lend her the money but who on earth could she go to? Honestly she wouldn't dare ask Dr. Kirstein about it because he was such a friend of her father's and mother's that he'd be dreadful y upset. "I won't have a baby. I won't have a baby," Mary was muttering. Ada had a fine threeroom apartment in the back of a building on Madison Avenue with a light tancolored car-pet and a huge grandpiano and lots of plants in pots and flowers in vases. They ate their supper there and strode up and down the livingroom al evening trying to think. Ada sat at the piano and played Bach preludes to calm her nerves, she said, but she was so upset she couldn't fol ow her music. At last Mary wrote George a specialdelivery letter asking him what to do. Next evening she got a reply. George was brokenhearted, but he enclosed the address of a doctor. Mary gave the letter to Ada to read. "What a lovely letter. I don't blame him at al . He sounds like a fine sensitive beautiful nature.""I hate him," said Mary, driving her nails into the palms of her hands. "I hate him." Next morning she went down al alone to the doctor's and had the operation. After it she went home in a taxicab and Ada put her to bed. Ada got on her nerves terribly tiptoeing in and out of the bedroom with her face wrinkled up. After about a week Mary French got up. She seemed to be al right, and started to go around New York looking for a job.

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walk the streets and walk the streets inquiring of

Coca Cola signs Lucky Strike ads pricetags in storewindows scraps of overheard conversations stray tatters of news-print yesterday's headlines sticking out of ashcans for a set of figures a formula of action an address you don't quite know you've forgotten the number the street may be in Brooklyn a train leaving for somewhere a steam-boat whistle stabbing your ears a job chalked up in front of an agency

to do to make there are more lives than walking des-perate the streets hurry underdog do make a speech urging action in the crowded hal after hand-clapping the pats and smiles of others on the platform the scrape of chairs the expectant hush the few coughs during the first stuttering attempt to talk straight tough going the snatch for a slogan they are listening and then the easy climb slogan by slogan to applause (if somebody in your head didn't say liar to you and on Union Square

that time you leant from a soapbox over faces avid

young opinionated old the middleaged numb with over-work eyes bleared with newspaperreading trying to tel them the straight dope make them laugh tel them what they want to hear wave a flag whispers the internal agitator crazy to succeed)

-149-you suddenly falter ashamed flush red break out in sweat why not tel these men stamping in the wind that we stand on a quicksand? that doubt is the whetstone of understanding is too hard hurts instead of urging picket John D. Rockefel er the bastard if the cops knock your blocks off it's al for the advancement of the human race while I go home after a drink and a hot meal and read (with some difficulty in the Loeb Library trot) the epigrams of Martial and ponder the course of history and what leverage might pry the owners loose from power and bring back (I too Walt Whitman) our storybook democ-racy and al the time in my pocket that letter from that col egeboy asking me to explain why being right which he admits the radicals are in their private lives such shits lie abed underdog (peeling the onion of doubt) with the book unread in your hand and swing on the seesaw maybe after al maybe topdog make

money you understood what he meant the old

party with the white beard beside the crystal inkpot at the cleared varnished desk in the walnut office in whose voice boomed al the clergymen of childhood and shril ed the hosannahs of the offkey female choirs Al you say is very true but there's such a thing as sales and I have daughters I'm sure you too wil end by thinking