Like a lost spirit he wandered from room to room, touching this, fingering that.

For long minutes he would stand before some picture, or some treasured bit of old mahogany, as if to stamp indelibly upon his mind a thing that was soon to be no more.

At other times, like a man without a home, he would go out into the Common or the Public Garden and sit for hours on some bench--thinking.
All this could have but one ending, of course.

Before the middle of August William summoned Pete to his rooms.
"Oh, Pete, I'm going to move next week," he began nonchalantly.

His voice sounded as if moving were a pleasurable circumstance that occurred in his life regularly once a month.