CHAPTER FOUR

I SIGHED heavily, as I sat there on my park bench, not so much at that long retrospect of a wasted young life, but more at the discovery that I was as hungry as a cracker's hound. And I also remembered that I'd surely enjoy a respectably long walk before stumbling over my next meal.

Post-mortems, as a rule, are apt to be depressing. And I'd reviewed my past and worried my brain until I was tired, yet it didn't seem to throw any light on the dilemma that still confronted me. It wasn't my nature, I know, to be morbid, but when you've got a past that you can't walk through without wearing shin-pads, it's better to keep to the open. What was over was over, and instead of carrying wreaths to the cemetery, I told that hungry soul which is so often the stepsister of a hungry body, it behooved me to hie to a lunchery where I could partake of Hamburger steak and hot coffee.

So I got up from my bench and started eastward toward Fifth Avenue. I moved quickly along the lonely walks, for the evening air had given me a