But they didn’t know him. Nor did it ever occur to them that they wanted to or could. They were not seeking the maturer companionship Thorn had to give; they were not seeking much of anything. They took life as they found it near at hand, and Thorn was far, very far away. For them, the niche he occupied could have been filled by any gentleman of thirty-two with a kind interest in them and an affection for the club. To him, they were everything that made the world, as he knew it just then, interesting and beautiful. Youth, energy, cleanliness were the trinity Thorn worshipped. And they were young, strong, and undefiled. Yet, after the first pleasure at being back had left him, Thorn was not a happy man, although he had not then begun to tell himself so. The seemingly unimportant question presented by his own name began to worry him a little as the weeks passed into months. First names and the absurd sounds men had answered to from babyhood were naturally in common use at the club. Thorn dropped into the way of them easily, as a matter of course. Not to have done so would, in time, have become impossible. The fellows would have thought it strange--formal. Yet the name of “Marcus” was rarely heard there. Haydock, once in a while, called him that, after due premeditation. Sears Wolcott occasionally used it by way of a joke--as if he were taking an impertinent liberty, and rather enjoyed doing it. But none of the other men ever did. On no occasion had any one said “Marcus” absent-mindedly, and then looked embarrassed, as Thorn had hoped might happen. It hurt him a little always to be called “Thorn;” to be appealed to in the capacity of “Mr. Thorn,” as he sometimes was by the younger members, positively annoyed him. Prescott was the most incorrigible in this respect. He had come from one of those fitting schools where all speech between master and pupil is carried on to a monotonous chant of “Yes, sir,” “No, sir,” and “I think so, sir.” He had ideas, or rather habits,--for Prescott’s ideas were few,--of deference to those whose mission it was to assist in his education that Thorn found almost impossible to displace. For a long time--until the graduate laughed and asked him not to--he prefixed the distasteful “Mr.” to Thorn’s name. Then, for as long again, he refrained markedly from calling him anything. One afternoon he came into the club where the instructor was alone, writing a letter, and after fussing for a time among the magazines on the table, he managed to say,-- “Thorn, do you know whether Sears has been here since luncheon?”