The Web of Life

s a hive of doctors. Layer after layer, their offices rise, circling the gulf of the elevator-well. At the very crown of the building Dr. Frederick H. Lindsay and

nces. From the one broad window the eye rests upon the blue shield of lake; nearer, almost at the foot of the building, run the ribboned tracks of the railroa

him. When he ceased to peer into a patient's mouth, he pushed up his spectacles and took a long look over the lake. Sometimes, if the patient was human and had enough temperament to appreciate his treasure,

an air of great secrecy in violent whisperings, emphasized by blows of the fist upon the back of the chair. The favored patients were deftly informed of "a good thing," the dentist taking advantage of the one inevitable moment of receptivity for his thrifty promotions. The schemes, it must be said, had never come to much. If Dr. Leonard had survived without any marked loss a dozen years of venturing, he might be said to have succeeded. He

act the patient's mind. He was not tinkering with teeth this time, however. The woman was sitting in the chair because it was the only unoccupied space. She had removed her hat and was looking s

red finally, "I saw it i

, wasn't it? and I h

restlessly, as if to ask

ed bluntly; "them that no one wants, like

back to the lake; it was e

ught when you'd started in the schools-it was a mighty hard

murmured. "They don't want married wom

ood enough to let you alone for most a year,

come back," she i

igh bein' shot to death. Then, worse yet, by what the papers said, you went to the hospital wi

smiled at h

ing manner, "how did you ever come to marry hi

m the chair and pulle

you understand; I

the dentist persis

. "I was a country girl away at school, more foolish

to the window, with

murmured. "But she has no chance, no cha

our boss, the superintendent, or the principal spoke to you, turned you o

teachers, and think all the time the pupils know it from their parents. They're all foreigners where I am now. They say the Evergl

er dismissed from a Chicago s

istrict-" she stopped a moment, and then continued tranquilly-"he was very intimate at first. I thought he wanted t

ly. "If the supervisor troubles you much, I'll

d in a moment, "they k

bed his bristly

-it seemed I ought to

orld-the only one to

n't know as you could get free now if you wanted to. You've put

do you

is wife, and they'll expect you t

. "But I suppose, anyway, I should ta

rew up his han

o straight off and get

heavy lids of her eyes;

end of it?" she ask

tify for you. Go right ahead, now he is laid

r face, and the white lids closing over the eyes. "Besides, he may ne

ded sympathetically. "Women are mostly children, the better sort, and y

done, and it's done. There's no ending it in this life. You can run a

dentist squared himself and raised the little lignum-v

You just drop him where you are, and start out alone and make the best of it. You can't do that in Chicago now. Get out of Chicago to-mo

tions, and evidentl

king to you about is going to make me mints of money. You can go right away to my sis

is plan. It was a new kind of scheme, in which he took the artistic delight of the incorrigible promoter. His imagination once enlisted for the plan, he held to it, arguing, c

essed it. She knew that the ventures had not yet made hi

aughters. It's just as easy as having a too

second time, without thinking. I chose then just as before, when I followed him to the hospital. When the doctor asked me if he sho

ng, toilsome ascent, to which she

t last, despondently. "Sleep on it. There

smiled, and p

n a lot of

't see what you came for. You

at that means. I go about in the schoolroom, and up and down the streets, and see things-horrible things. The world gets to be one big tortur

busied himself in putting the little steel instrument

Preston acknowledged quietly, as

st commented, when he was left alone. He picked up a sheaf of stock certificates and eyed

e great eyes of the locomotives glared though the March dusk. As the suburban trains pulled out from minute to minute, thick wreaths of smoke

' the dentist mused. 'Some day she'l

he recognized him as the young surgeon who had operated upon her husband at St. Isidore's. She stepped behind the iron grating of the elevator well and watche

door from which he came was covered with a long list of names. She