It was impossible for Henry to get to his office in half an hour. The wind was howling, and the cars were stuck in snowdrifts. Не couldn’t 30 ______ a day like that. The buses had been somewhere around Park Avenue, where they sat huddled like frozen dinosaurs, as one left the flock only very rarely to 31 ______ up a few brave travellers. The travellers rushed from doorways frantically waving their arms, sliding wildly to the curb. They mounted the buses with damp eyes and red faces, and in Henry’s case, icicles on his beard.

It had been absolutely impossible to get a taxi. He had given 32 ______ after fifteen minutes of waiting and started walking south from his street. Henry often walked to work. It was only eighteen blocks from door to door. Today he soon

33 ______ that the biting wind was brutal, and he had only gone four more blocks when he had already been out of breath. A friendly doorman 34 ______ him to wait in the lobby. Henry thought that the other, more sensible souls when they caught their first glimpse of the blizzard that morning had 35 ______ not to go to work at all. Henry was sure that the store would be half empty. But he wasn’t the type to sit at home twiddling his thumbs or watching serials. And it wasn’t that he went to work because he was too compulsive. The truth was that Henry went to work six days a week simply because he loved the store very much, 36 ______ often, like today, he didn’t have to come.