He could not free himself from the belief that his disappearance was a serious matter. The recollection of their last meeting oppressed him with an unpleasant distinctness all at once. He roused himself from his abstraction to say to his mother: “Do you know, I am worried about poor Lester Royal.” Katherine sniffed aloud at this: “Lester Royal, indeed!” “I've been looking for him all the morning and I can't get track of him,” he continued. “Perhaps he is too drunk to be seen. It would be no new thing if he were,” said Katherine. Philip was using such a character as his sister in some work he was doing, and he was interested in examining her capacity for abusive speech when spurred by anger. Here was an opportunity: “Well, if he wants to get drunk it's his privilege.” “He should be locked up instead of being allowed to disgrace himself and everybody else.” “Oh, no, Kate—you would be too severe. What you foolishly take to be a religious conviction is simply a woman's prejudice at seeing a man enjoy himself.” “Of course you call intoxication enjoyment. Your views are so broad.” “Are they?” “You think they are, but if I were in your place I should exercise some selection in the choosing of my associates.” “Would you really? How nice!” “My friends should be my equals. Neither low Germans nor drunkards.” “But men are only equal when they are drunk.” From her seat at the head of the table, Mrs. Southard sent him a look of mute entreaty, and it struck him for the thousandth time that the wrangling in which he and Katherine indulged was hard for his mother to bear. He promptly abandoned the attack, finished his dinner in grim silence, and started out again, bent on finding Lester, but grumbling as he went that he should be so weak as to care about the boy. He devoted an hour or so to investigating the various resorts Lester was known to frequent, and eventually learned that he had been seen very much the worse for drink on the day following the night they had spent together. Since then no one knew what had become of him. The opinion of the loafer who furnished the information was that he had gone off somewhere to sober up. “The ass!” thought Philip bitterly. “The brainless ass! Here I get into a pretty state over his woes and this is the extent of his reformation. He goes and gets drunk, which is a good reason for his not going home or caring to see me.” It was a bright fall afternoon—brisk and bracing—with touches of winter in the air. Philip turned his back on the town. It was just the season for a tramp into the country, and since the greater part of the day had been wasted as far as writing was concerned he proposed to amuse himself. As he strode along thoughts of Lester would come to him, and in the end pity had replaced his momentary bitterness toward him.