I stood before him, visibly overwhelmed. It was evident that my silent hero-worship was sweet to him. He bespoke me gently and courteously. "So you want to become an Eoite?" "Yes," I whispered, bending my gaze humbly before his. "And what is your name, my dear boy." "John Gregory, Master!" "What have you brought with you? where is your baggage?" "I--I lost my baggage ... all I have with me is a-a r-razor." He leaned his head back and laughed joyously. His lambent brown eyes glowed with humour. I liked the man. "Yes, we'll give you a job--Razorre!" he assured me, calling me by the nickname which clung to me during my stay.... "Take that axe and show me what you can do." I caught up the axe and fell to with enthusiasm. The gospel of the dignity and worth of labour that he preached thrilled in me. It was the first time I ever enjoyed working.... As we worked the Master talked ... talked with me as if he had known me for years--as if I, too, were Somebody. There was nothing he did not discuss, in memorable phrase and trenchant, clever epigram. For he saw that I believed in him, worshipped whole-heartedly at his shrine of genius, and he gave me, in return, of his best. For the first time I saw what human language is for. I thought of Goethe at Weimar ... Wilde's clever conversation in London.... Never since did I see the real man, Spalton, as I saw him then, the man he might always have been, if he had had an old-world environment, instead of the environment of modern, commercial America--the spirit of which finally claimed him, as he grew more successful.... Modern, commercial America--where we proudly make a boast of lack of culture, and where artistic and aesthetic feeling, if freely expressed, makes one's hearers more likely than not, at once uneasy and restive. * * * * * That night, at supper, I caught my first glimpse of the Eoites in a body. The contrast between them and my school-folk was agreeably different. I found among them an atmosphere of good-natured greeting and raillery, that sped from table to table. And when Spalton strode in, with his bold, swinging gait (it seemed that he had just returned from a lecture in a distant city early that afternoon), there was cheering and clapping. Guests and workers joined together in the same dining hall, with no distinctive division.... I sat next to Spalton's table, and a warm glow of pleasure swept through me when he sent me a pleasant nod. "Hello, Razorre," he had greeted me; then he had turned to the group at his table and told them about me, I could see by their glances--but in a pleasant way. * * * * *