6 in San Francisco, and for the first time,
since his retirement to Palgrave Island, the world looked upon his face.
And the world was disappointed. Its imagination had been touched. An
heroic figure had been made out of Goliah. He was the man, or the
demi-god, rather, who had turned the planet over. The deeds of
Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon were as the play of babes
alongside his colossal achievements.

And ashore in San Francisco and through its streets stepped and rode a
little old man, sixty-five years of age, well preserved, with a
pink-and-white complexion and a bald spot on his head the size of an
apple. He was short-sighted and wore spectacles. But when the
spectacles were removed, his were quizzical blue eyes like a child's,
filled with mild wonder at the world. Also his eyes had a way of
twinkling, accompanied by a screwing up of the face, as if he laughed at
the huge joke he had played upon the world, trapping it, in spite of
itself, into happiness and laughter.

For a scientific superman and world tyrant, he had remarkable weaknesses.
He loved sweets, and was inordinately fond of salted almonds and salted
pecans, especially of the latter. He always carried a paper bag of them
in his pocket, and he had a way of saying frequently that the chemism of
his nature demanded such fare. Perhaps his most astonishing failing was
cats. He had an ineradicable aversion to that domestic animal. It will
be remembered that he fainted dead away with sudden fright, while
speaking in Brotherhood Palace, when the janitor's cat walked out upon
the stage and brushed against his legs.

But no sooner had he revealed himself to the world than he was
identified. Old-time friends had no difficulty in recognizing him as
Percival Stultz, the German-American who, in 1898, had worked in the
Union Iron Works, and who, for two years at that time, had been secretary
of Branch 369 of the International Brotherhood of Machinists. It was in
1901, then twenty-five years of age, that he had taken special scientific
courses at the University of California, at the same time supporting
himself by soliciting what was then known as "life insurance." His
records as a student are preserved in the university museum, and they are
unenviable. He is remembered by the professors he sat under chiefly for
his absent-mindedness. Undoubtedly, even then, he was catching glimpses
of the wide visions that later were to be his.

H