Mr. A prides himself on his ability to cut holes in the logical fabric spun by conspicuous men. He has engaged prominent preachers of the gospel in correspondence, arguing that something in their writings leads logically to the conclusion that any war, not excepting the last one, is wrong, and that they should confess this openly, declaring their sorrow for having been infected with un-Christian war-hysteria. He believes that right reason is the hope of mankind, and the name of science is exalted in his mind. He was glad to lay his own life-story on the altar of science, and in the name of science to endure the embarrassment of recalling private facts which most of us try to forget. Mr. A’s later convictions have been held with enough intensity to redefine many of his earlier opinions. Thus his pacifism brought him into sharp opposition to the government, which resented his expression of the truth as he understood it. Mr. A warmly champions the cause of the individual against official interference in matters of taste and conscience, and has modified his early enthusiasm for prohibition. Although censorious, accusatory, didactic, and defiant in public address, he is cordial and winning in those face-to-face situations where he is unaware of hostility. His eyes twinkle with good humor, and he is gentle, responsive, and anxious to impress. His speech and gestures are quick, and his manner is alert and often tense. A’s physique inclines toward the asthenic end of a hypothetical pyknic-asthenic scale, such as Wertheimer and Hesketh have constructed from Kretschmer’s observations on physical types.[30] He is noticeably lean, but strikes the impressionistic observer as being toward neither the tall nor the short end of the scale. The legs are somewhat longer than the length of the body warrants, and the bony structures of shoulder, hip, knee, and ankle are prominent. The thin face is rather delicately molded, and is given added dignity and distinction by a neat Van Dyke beard. The chest is flat, and the upper ribs fall inward. His erect carriage seems to be a compensation against a predilection toward a scholarly stoop. In middle and later middle life he has been bothered by gastro-intestinal disorders. The second son of an impecunious village parson, he grew up in straitened circumstances with a brother somewhat his senior. The mother died when A’s youngest sister was born, and the children were cared for by the father and a succession of elderly housekeepers who left faint memories behind them. A and his brother went to an old-fashioned ungraded school, entering at the same time in spite of their disparity in years, so the younger one would not be left alone in the house.