Read "The Failure" by Charles Caldwell Dobie online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
True to his resolve, John Scidmore took an early train to San Francisco next morning, although he could not have said why. It was as impossible to place insurance at eight-thirty as it was at three A. M., since no self-respecting insurance office opened until nine. Still there is a certain comfort in even futile activity when one has the fidgets.
It was a beautiful October morning such as often veils the Berkeley hills in faint purple and draws a soft glamour over the city of San Francisco; and as Scidmore walked briskly down the elm-shaded streets of Berkeley toward the train, he felt elusively happy, notwithstanding the ripples below the surface of his content.