like living under a tyranny. People's speech,
their voices, their very glances, became fur-
tive and repressed. Every individual taste,
every natural appetite, was bridled by cau-
tion. The people asleep in those houses, I
thought, tried to live like the mice in their
own kitchens; to make no noise, to leave no
trace, to slip over the surface of things in the
dark. The growing piles of ashes and cinders
in the back yards were the only evidence that
the wasteful, consuming process of life went
on at all. On Tuesday nights the Owl Club
danced; then there was a little stir in the
streets, and here and there one could see a
lighted window until midnight. But the next
night all was dark again.

After I refused to join "the Owls," as they
were called, I made a bold resolve to go to
the Saturday night dances at Firemen's Hall.
I knew it would be useless to acquaint my
elders with any such plan. Grandfather did-
n't approve of dancing anyway; he would
only say that if I wanted to dance I could go
to the Masonic Hall, among "the people we
knew." It was just my point that I saw al-
together too much of the people we knew.

My bedroom was on the ground floor, and as

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v?