 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.] 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. 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. "That's right, Danny, I just missed it," I said, and went on in. My wife used to be a trained nurse and she is quite convinced that I cannot take a breath without 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. There were four men confronting him, evidently torn between the desire to make an angry exit and the impulse to stay and beat him up. "Here!" he said, holding out a deck of cards, "For Pete's sake, look at 'em yourselves if you think they're marked!" "Okay, Houdini! All I know is five straight...." Someone must have rung, because at that moment the elevator arrived and the four men, with half frightened, incredulous looks, and in silence, got in and were taken down. "Judas!" he said, and started to pick them up. At the delicatessen on the corner, the man gave me three bottles in what must have been a wet bag, because as he handed them to me over the top of the cold-meat display, the bottom gave and they fell onto the tile floor.
 kinder neighbors
 better weather  kinder neighbors  his wife to come home  a better job