train jogged
along, men of Underwood's bold and reckless type wield, especially over
women. Their very daring and unscrupulousness seems to render them more
attractive. He himself at college had fallen entirely under the man's
spell. There was no doubt that he was responsible for all his troubles.
Underwood possessed the uncanny gift of being able to bend people to his
will. What a fool he had made of him at the university! He had been his
evil genius, there was no question of that. But for meeting Underwood he
might have applied himself to serious study, left the university with
honors and be now a respectable member of the community. He remembered
with a smile that it was through Underwood that he had met his wife.
Some of the fellows hinted that Underwood had known her more intimately
than he had pretended and had only passed her on to him because he was
tired of her. He had nailed that as a lie. Annie, he could swear, was as
good a girl as ever breathed.

He couldn't explain Underwood's influence over him. He had done with him
what he chose. He wondered why he had been so weak, why he had not tried
to resist. The truth was Underwood exercised a strange, subtle power
over him. He had the power to make him do everything he wanted him to
do, no matter how foolish or unreasonable the request. Every one at
college used to talk about it. One night Underwood invited all his
classmates to his rooms and made him cut up all kinds of capers. He at
first refused, point blank--but Underwood got up and, standing directly
in front of him, gazed steadily into his eyes. Again he commanded him to
do these ridiculous, degrading things. Howard felt himself weakening. He
was suddenly seized with the feeling that he must obey. Amid roars of
laughter he recited the entire alphabet standing on one leg, he crowed
like a rooster, he hopped like a toad, and he crawled abjectly on his
belly like a snake. One of the fellows told him afterward that he had
been hypnotized. He had laughed at it then as a good joke, but now he
came to think of it, perhaps it was true. Possibly he was a subject.
Anyway he was glad to be rid of Underwood and his uncanny influence.

The train stopped with a jerk at his station and Howard rode down in the
elevator to the street Crossing Eighth Avenue, he was going straight
home when suddenly he halted. The glitter and tempting array of bottles
in a corner saloon window tempted him. He suddenly felt that if there
was