“But I didn’t come here with any set idea, you know.” “The work you will do for us in America will be the better for that. The more reason and rationale you bring----” “Evidently it’s easy for one to go off his head where Gandhi is,” Dicky said. “His effect on some is subtle and strong.” “I’ll keep a stiff bridle arm. Say, Nagar, have you stopped to think how I happen to be here to-day?” “Tell me, please.” “One hanging sock.” “I do not understand.” “One hanging sock. It was that which made me go out into the reception room in the first place, that day you brought the story to _The Public Square_. I heard the office boy say to J. H., ‘He keeps pulling up his sock.’ I went out to see. So that’s what made me go to Harrow Street, and meet Miss Claes and the rest and go to Africa, and come here. I believe that’s what started the World War.” Nagar laughed. “I always had such trouble in the early days with American clothing. I would get one part working and another would give way----” “But, Nagar, what made it so imperative for you to have the two hundred that day?” “A ship was leaving within twenty-four hours for the Mediterranean to connect with South African ports. Mahatma-ji was greatly in need of funds to carry on his work.” “I thought you were ill--possibly starving.” “I was ill from strain--self-consciousness. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do--to stand up against America in the office of _The Public Square_.” “You certainly put it over. But what made you so silent in New York? It’s an actual shock to find you chatty and human, like this.” “Certain of us in India are trained differently from American ways. You perhaps have read that in the Pythagorean schools, a period of silence was enjoined among the young men. It was so in my training. We seek to silence all opinions, all half-truths, all thinking, in fact, in order to _Know_. We postulate, of course, a center of Spontaneous Knowledge, or Genius, above the mind. To learn obedience to this, one takes a vow of silence----” “Ah, I remember! Pidge--Miss Musser--I mean Mrs. Melton, told me something of the kind!” XXVII THE MAHATMA AND THE MIRACLE COBDEN heard the voice before he saw the man. Standing in a darkened hall of the bungalow, spoken of as the _Ashrama_, the voice of one speaking English in easy cultured tones reached his ears. When the door opened, he saw several native young men sitting upon the floor and a wasted Hindu figure in the center--a little man in a thin turban more like a skullcap; a homespun loincloth, his bare feet beneath him upon a mat of coarse cloth, a rough pillow at his back. The young men about him had risen, but the central figure merely lifted and extended the hand. “Mr. Cobden from America,” Gandhi said. “Nagarjuna has made us eager to welcome you.” Even Nagar withdrew, but one of the boys returned bringing a chair.