He turned the radio on, and adjusted his hearing, so that he heard only a comforting confusion of sound. An electric reading lamp, capable at a turn of a finger of three degrees of intensity, stood (just out of reach) beside a large chair. Behind was a veneered secretary of anonymous century and unavowed design, holding protected behind glass an assortment of books published by the hundred-thousand, treatises on the cultivation of the individual self, prescriptions of superficial alterations in vulgarity read with excruciating eagerness by men alone in big chairs, the three-way lamp turned to its wildest brilliance as they fingered those desperate blazons of individuality tied in mean knots at their throats, fastened monogrammed tie-clasps the more firmly, swung keys on gold-plated monogram-bearing (“Individualized”) key-chains, tightened their arms against wallets in inside pockets which held the papers proving their identity beyond doubt to others and in moments of Doubt to themselves, papers in such variety that the bearer himself became their appurtenance, each one contemplating over words in a book (which had sold four million copies: How to Speak Effectively; Conquer Fear; Increase Your Income; Develop Self-Confidence; “Sell” Yourself and Your Ideas; Improve Your Memory; Increase Your Ability to Handle People; Win More Friends; Improve Your Personality; Prepare for Leadership) the Self which had ceased to exist the day they stopped seeking it alone.