inite individual to whom you can point and
say: "There goes my father."

As it was, it all came down to him and Buck. He and Buck were alone in
the world together. He rather clung to the thought of Buck, and
instantly caught himself at it. Very well; let him take it that way
then. Take Buck as a symbol of the world, of those friendships which
played such certain havoc with a man's Schedule. Was he glad that he had
Buck or was he not?

The little Doctor lay on his back in the glare thinking things out. The
gas in his eyes was an annoyance, but he did not realize it, and so did
not get up, as another man would have done, and put it out.

Certainly it was an extraordinary thing that the only critics he had
ever had in his life had all three attacked his theory of living at
precisely the same point. They had all three urged him to get in touch
with his environment. He himself could unanswerably demonstrate that in
such degree as he succeeded in isolating himself from his
environment--at least until his great work was done--in just that degree
would his life be successful. But these three seemed to declare, with
the confidence of those who state an axiom, that in just that degree was
his life a failure. Of course they could not demonstrate their
contention as he could demonstrate his, but the absence of reasoning did
not appear to shake their assurance in the smallest. Here then was
another apparent conflict of instinct with reason: their instinct with
his reason. Perhaps he might have dismissed the whole thing as merely
their religion, but that his father, with that mysterious letter of
counsel, was among them. He did not picture his father as a religious
man. Besides, Fifi, asked point-blank if that was her religion, had
denied, assuring him, singularly enough, that it was only common-sense.

And among them, among all the people that had touched him in this new
life, there was no denying that he had had some curiously unsettling
experiences.

He had been ready to turn the pages of the book of life for Fifi, an
infant at his knee, and all at once Fifi had taken the book from his
hands and read aloud, in a language which was quite new to him, a
lecture on his own short-comings. There was no denying that her question
about his notions on altruism had given him an odd, arresting glimpse of
himself from a new peak. He had set out in his pride to punish Mr. Pat,
and Mr. Pat had severely punished him, revealing him humiliati