inous pomposity was the morality of those about him,
which was a curious hotchpotch of the economic, the metaphysical, the
sentimental, and the imitative.

A sample of this curious messy mixture he encountered nearer home. His
sister Marian had been keeping company with an industrious young
mechanic, of German extraction, who, after thoroughly learning the trade,
had set up for himself in a bicycle-repair shop. Also, having got the
agency for a low-grade make of wheel, he was prosperous. Marian had
called on Martin in his room a short time before to announce her
engagement, during which visit she had playfully inspected Martin's palm
and told his fortune. On her next visit she brought Hermann von Schmidt
along with her. Martin did the honors and congratulated both of them in
language so easy and graceful as to affect disagreeably the peasant-mind
of his sister's lover. This bad impression was further heightened by
Martin's reading aloud the half-dozen stanzas of verse with which he had
commemorated Marian's previous visit. It was a bit of society verse,
airy and delicate, which he had named "The Palmist." He was surprised,
when he finished reading it, to note no enjoyment in his sister's face.
Instead, her eyes were fixed anxiously upon her betrothed, and Martin,
following her gaze, saw spread on that worthy's asymmetrical features
nothing but black and sullen disapproval. The incident passed over, they
made an early departure, and Martin forgot all about it, though for the
moment he had been puzzled that any woman, even of the working class,
should not have been flattered and delighted by having poetry written
about her.

Several evenings later Marian again visited him, this time alone. Nor
did she waste time in coming to the point, upbraiding him sorrowfully for
what he had done.

"Why, Marian," he chided, "you talk as though you were ashamed of your
relatives, or of your brother at any rate."

"And I am, too," she blurted out.

Martin was bewildered by the tears of mortification he saw in her eyes.
The mood, whatever it was, was genuine.

"But, Marian, why should your Hermann be jealous of my writing poetry
about my own sister?"

"He ain't jealous," she sobbed. "He says it was indecent, ob--obscene."

Martin emitted a long, low whistle of incredulity, then proceeded to
resurrect and read a carbon copy of "The Palmist."

"I can't see it," he said finally, proffering the manuscript to her.
"Read i