tough as the
police permitted. He did not disguise it to himself, nor attempt to palliate it.
At one time in his life he had been just a common hoodlum, the leader of a gang
that worried the police and terrorized honest, working-class householders. But
his ideals had changed. He glanced about him at the well-bred, well-dressed men
and women, and breathed into his lungs the atmosphere of culture and refinement,
and at the same moment the ghost of his early youth, in stiff-rim and
square-cut, with swagger and toughness, stalked across the room. This figure, of
the corner hoodlum, he saw merge into himself, sitting and talking with an
actual university professor.
    For, after all, he had never found his permanent abiding place. He had
fitted in wherever he found himself, been a favorite always and everywhere by
virtue of holding his own at work and at play and by his willingness and ability
to fight for his rights and command respect. But he had never taken root. He had
fitted in sufficiently to satisfy his fellows but not to satisfy himself. He had
been perturbed always by a feeling of unrest, had heard always the call of
something from beyond, and had wandered on through life seeking it until he
found books and art and love. And here he was, in the midst of all this, the
only one of all the comrades he had adventured with who could have made
themselves eligible for the inside of the Morse home.
    But such thoughts and visions did not prevent him from following Professor
Caldwell closely. And as he followed, comprehendingly and critically, he noted
the unbroken field of the other's knowledge. As for himself, from moment to
moment the conversation showed him gaps and open stretches, whole subjects with
which he was unfamiliar. Nevertheless, thanks to his Spencer, he saw that he
possessed the outlines of the field of knowledge. It was a matter only of time,
when he would fill in the outline. Then watch out, he thought - ware shoal,
everybody! He felt like sitting at the feet of the professor, worshipful and
absorbent; but, as he listened, he began to discern a weakness in the other's
judgments - a weakness so stray and elusive that he might not have caught it had
it not been ever present. And when he did catch it, he leapt to equality at
once.
    Ruth came up to them a second time, just as Martin began to speak.
    »I'll tell you where you are wrong, or, rather