One day the judge commented at the beginning of the interview that a certain attorney irritated him in some unexplained way. He found himself acutely conscious of his own prejudice against the man, and in trying to deal fairly with him often leaned over backward and showed him an embarrassing favoritism in sustaining his objections. There was always a struggle to hold the balance even. This seemed to indicate the conspicuous operation of some unrecognized set of motives in relation to this particular individual. The judge, who was already partly skilled in the use of free-fantasy, began to report whatever came into his mind at the mention of the attorney, without regard to logic or scruple. “Cigar smoke ... black cigar ... vile and pungent and stuffy ... corridor ... courtroom ...,” and so on and on. The word “corridor” reappeared several times in the course of his associations, and the interviewer initiated a new chain by using the word as a stimulus. After some time, there came up a vivid memory of an incident in the corridor of the law school where the judge had studied. A fellow-student, who was a man with a great reputation as a promising mind, dropped cigar ashes by accident on the judge’s overcoat. The judge remembered his angry impulse to “sock” the offender, an impulse which he instantly subdued, and that he accepted the apology, which seemed to end the incident. Associations were continued to find why the brilliant rival had so incensed the judge, and the trail led back to certain incidents and reveries in early adolescence, but this material is not relevant here. The connection of his hostility toward his former rival with the attorney before him was due to one of the attorney’s mannerisms, which recalled the way the student had flecked ashes off the end of his cigar. When this tie was exposed, the compulsive animosity and the overcompensatory reactions disappeared from the attitude of the judge in relation to the attorney.