 What wouldn't Mr. Graham likely wish for at the beginning of the story?
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] No doubt whatever about it, I had the Indian sign on me ... I didn't notice the impending rain storm and had no umbrella when I reached the sidewalk, to find myself confronted with an almost tropical downpour. Whizzing traffic held me up at each crossing and I was soaked when I reached the platform, just in time to miss the local. After an abnormal delay, I got one which exactly missed the express at Fourteenth Street. As I walked across to Madison Avenue, I passed a big excavation where they were getting ready to put up a new office building. At the moment of the explosion—if so feeble a thing can be called one—I felt something sting my face and, on touching it, found blood on my hand. During the day, by actual count, I heard the phrase "I'm just spitballing" eight times, and another Madison Avenue favorite, "The whole ball of wax," twelve times. "That's right, Danny, I just missed it," I said, and went on in. Psychiatry tells us that some people are accident-prone; I, on the other hand, seemed recently to be coincidence-prone, fluke-happy, and except for the alarm clock, I'd had no control over what had been going on. My wife used to be a trained nurse and she is quite convinced that I cannot take a breath without her. There, I thought to myself, is that one chance in a million we hear about, and picked up the pencil. My drink was gone and I went back to the kitchen and read Molly's notes again to see if they would be like a letter from her. The Sun was out again and a man with a stick was exercising his flock of pigeons. They wheeled in a circle, hoping to be allowed to perch, but were not allowed to. I was thinking about this decorative fact when I saw that as they were making a turn, they seemed to bunch up together. By some curious chance, they all wanted the same place in the sky to turn in, and several collided and fell. Since our building is usually very well behaved, I was astonished to hear what sounded like an incipient free-for-all, and among the angry voices I recognized that of my neighbor, Nat, a very quiet guy who works on a newspaper and has never, to my knowledge, given wild parties, particularly in the late afternoon.
 kinder neighbors
 better weather  kinder neighbors  his wife to come home  a better job