That evening in the company of Faraday and his first whisky was the turning-point in the career of William Tully. Any man stronger than himself could at that juncture in his life have turned him to right or left; a push in the wrong direction would have made of him an idler and a wastrel, and fate was in a kindly mood when she placed him mentally and morally in charge of "Vindex" of _The Torch_. She might, as her reckless way is, have handed over his little soul to some flamboyant rogue or expert in small vices; instead, she laid it in the keeping of a man who was clean-living, charged with unselfish enthusiasm and never consciously dishonest. The product of a Board School Scholarship and a fiercely energetic process of self-education (prompted in part by the desire to excel those he despised) Faraday, when William made his acquaintance, was beginning to realize some of his cherished ambitions, beginning, in certain Labour and Socialist circles, to be treated as a man of mark. His pen was fluent as well as sarcastic, and if his numerous contributions to the "rebel" press had been paid for at ordinary rates he would have been a prosperous journalist. It was somewhat of a shock to William to discover on the top of the whisky that his new acquaintance was a Socialist; but after the first and momentary shock he swallowed the fact as he had swallowed the alcohol—not because he liked it, but because it was something the narrow circle of his mother’s friends would have heartily and loudly disapproved of. This reactionary and undutiful attitude of mind was not deliberate or conscious; on the contrary, he would certainly have been horrified to learn that it was the dominant factor in his existence during the first few weeks of his emancipation from maternal supervision and control—urging him to drink deeply of Faraday’s brand of Socialism as it urged him to partake with unnecessary sumptuousness of the best that Lyons could provide.