“That I'm thinking of driving the rats overboard,” replied I. “The ship's sound, but it would be sounder if there were fewer of them.” “You don't imagine anything Tom could say would change my feelings toward you?” he pleaded. “I don't know, and I don't care a damn,” replied I coolly. “But I do know, before the Langdons or anybody else can have Blacklock pie, they'll have first to catch their Blacklock.” I saw Langdon had made him uneasy, despite his belief in my strength. And he was groping for confirmation or reassurance. “But,” thought I, “if he thinks I may be going up the spout, why isn't he more upset? He probably hates me because I've befriended him, but no matter how much he hated me, wouldn't his fear of being cut off from supplies drive him almost crazy?” I studied him in vain for sign of deep anxiety. Either Tom didn't tell him much, I decided, or he didn't believe Tom knew what he was talking about. “What did Tom say about me?” I inquired. “Oh, almost nothing. We were talking chiefly of--of club matters,” he answered, in a fair imitation of his usual offhand manner. “When does my name come up there?” said I. He flushed and shifted. “I was just about to tell you,” he stammered. “But perhaps you know?” “Know what?” “That--Hasn't Tom told you? He has withdrawn--and--you'll have to get another second--if you think--that is--unless you--I suppose you'd have told me, if you'd changed your mind?” Since I had become so deeply interested in Anita, my ambition--ambition!--to join the Travelers had all but dropped out of my mind. “I had forgotten about it,” said I. “But, now that you remind me, I want my name withdrawn. It was a passing fancy. It was part and parcel of a lot of damn foolishness I've been indulging in for the last few months. But I've come to my senses--and it's 'me to the wild,' where I belong, Sammy, from this time on.” He looked tremendously relieved, and a little puzzled, too. I thought I was reading him like an illuminated sign. “He's eager to keep friends with me,” thought I, “until he's absolutely sure there's nothing more in it for him and his people.” And that guess was a pretty good one. It is not to the discredit of my shrewdness that I didn't see it was not hope, but fear, that made him try to placate me. I could not have possibly known then what the Langdons had done. But--Sammy was saying, in his friendliest tone: “What's the matter, old man? You're sour to-night.” “Never in a better humor,” I assured him, and as I spoke the words they came true. What I had been saying about the Travelers and all it represented--all the snobbery, and smirking, and rotten pretense--my final and absolute renunciation of it all--acted on me as I've seen religion act on the fellows that used to go up to the mourners' bench at the revivals. I felt as if I had suddenly emerged from the parlor of a dive and its stench of sickening perfumes, into the pure air of God's Heaven.