Like many Americans, I was no believer in the equality of men. For men as a whole I had no respect, and in none but the smallest group had I any confidence. Looking at the faces as they passed me in the hall, I saw only those of brutes—and these were mostly people who had had what we call advantages. As for those who had not had advantages I disliked them in contact and distrusted them in principle. I described myself not only as a snob, but as an aristocrat. I had worked it out that to be well educated and well-to-do was the normal. To be poor and ill educated was abnormal. Those who suffered from lack of means or refinement did so because of some flaw in themselves or their inheritance. They were the plague of the world. They created all the world’s problems and bred most of its diseases. From the beginning of time they had been a source of disturbance to better men, and would be to the end of it. It was the irony of ironies, then, that I should have become a member of a group that included a lady’s maid, a chauffeur, and two stenographers, and been hailed as one of them. The lady’s maid and the chauffeur I could, of course, dismiss from my mind; but the two stenographers had seemingly sworn such a friendship for me that nothing but force would cut me free from it. Very well, then; I should use force if it was needed; but it wouldn’t be needed. All I had to do was to refrain from going to take Drinkwater out to dinner, and they would never know where I was. And yet, if you would believe it, I went. Within half an hour I was knocking at his bedroom door and hearing his cheery "Come in." Why I did this I cannot tell you. It was neither from loneliness, nor kind-heartedness, nor a sense of duty. The feet that wouldn’t take the horse to the stable took him back to that crimson rooming-house, and that is all I can say. Drinkwater was sitting in the dark, which was no darker to him than daylight; but when I switched on the light his pug grin gave an added illumination to the room. "Say, that’s the darnedest! I knew you’d come in spite of the old lady swearing you wouldn’t. I’d given you half an hour yet; and here you are, twenty-five minutes ahead of time." The reception annoyed me. It was bad enough to have come; but it was worse to have been expected. "How have you been getting on?" I asked, in order to relieve my first anxiety. "Oh, fine!" "Haven’t you been—dull?" "Lord, no!" "What have you had to do?" "Oh, enjoy myself—feeling my way about the house. I can go all round the room, and out into the hall, and up and down stairs just as easily as you can. It’s a cinch." "Have you heard anything of Miss Flair?" "Sure! Called up about an hour ago to say she’d found the swellest place—in Forty-first Street. But, say, Jasper, what do you think of a girl who gives up the room she’s reserved for a month and more, just to—" I broke in on this to ask where he’d had his lunch.