Once he had a talk with Eckardt of the matter. “She is fine and purposeful like a woman I knew in my home town,” he said, thinking of Eleanor Telfer, “but she will not talk to me of her work as sometimes she talks to you. I want her to talk. There is something about her that I do not understand and that I want to understand. I think that she likes me and once or twice I have thought she would not greatly mind my making love to her, but I do not understand her just the same.” One day in the office of the company for which he worked Sam became acquainted with a young advertising man named Jack Prince, a brisk, very much alive young fellow who made money rapidly, spent it lavishly, and had friends and acquaintances in every office, every hotel lobby, every bar room and restaurant in the down-town section of the city. The chance acquaintance rapidly grew into friendship. The clever, witty Prince made a kind of hero of Sam, admiring his reserve and good sense and boasting of him far and wide through the town. With Prince, Sam occasionally went on mild carouses, and, once, in the midst of thousands of people sitting about tables and drinking beer at the Coliseum on Wabash Avenue, he and Prince got into a fight with two waiters, Prince declaring he had been cheated and Sam, although he thought his friend in the wrong, striking out with his fist and dragging Prince through the door and into a passing street car in time to avoid a rush of other waiters hurrying to the aid of the one who lay dazed and sputtering on the sawdust floor.