y by the very rich and the
very powerful.

In one way, he had undergone a moral revolution. Her cleanness and
purity had reacted upon him, and he felt in his being a crying need to be
clean. He must be that if he were ever to be worthy of breathing the
same air with her. He washed his teeth, and scrubbed his hands with a
kitchen scrub-brush till he saw a nail-brush in a drug-store window and
divined its use. While purchasing it, the clerk glanced at his nails,
suggested a nail-file, and so he became possessed of an additional toilet-
tool. He ran across a book in the library on the care of the body, and
promptly developed a penchant for a cold-water bath every morning, much
to the amazement of Jim, and to the bewilderment of Mr. Higginbotham, who
was not in sympathy with such high-fangled notions and who seriously
debated whether or not he should charge Martin extra for the water.
Another stride was in the direction of creased trousers. Now that Martin
was aroused in such matters, he swiftly noted the difference between the
baggy knees of the trousers worn by the working class and the straight
line from knee to foot of those worn by the men above the working class.
Also, he learned the reason why, and invaded his sister's kitchen in
search of irons and ironing-board. He had misadventures at first,
hopelessly burning one pair and buying another, which expenditure again
brought nearer the day on which he must put to sea.

But the reform went deeper than mere outward appearance. He still
smoked, but he drank no more. Up to that time, drinking had seemed to
him the proper thing for men to do, and he had prided himself on his
strong head which enabled him to drink most men under the table. Whenever
he encountered a chance shipmate, and there were many in San Francisco,
he treated them and was treated in turn, as of old, but he ordered for
himself root beer or ginger ale and good-naturedly endured their
chaffing. And as they waxed maudlin he studied them, watching the beast
rise and master them and thanking God that he was no longer as they. They
had their limitations to forget, and when they were drunk, their dim,
stupid spirits were even as gods, and each ruled in his heaven of
intoxicated desire. With Martin the need for strong drink had vanished.
He was drunken in new and more profound ways--with Ruth, who had fired
him with love and with a glimpse of higher and eternal life; with books,
that had set a myria