e downtrodden."

Lambert laughed.

"As far as I know, hasn't mentioned a cossack since that night; and I
have to confess, hard-headed reactionary, the ranks are making me see
too many bad qualities among the good."

"Perhaps," George suggested, "the ranks are saying something of the sort
about us. Besides, I don't see why you call me reactionary."

"Would you have minded it a while back?" Lambert asked.

"Just the same," George answered, "I'd like to get their point of view."

What would Squibs say to that from him? Squibs, undoubtedly, would be
pleased. After Lambert had gone he sat for a long time thinking. He was
glad Lambert had come, for the other had suggested that in endeavouring
to capture such a point of view, in pleasing Squibs, he might at last
find a real interest, and one of use to somebody besides himself. If the
men on the heights didn't get at it pretty soon, a different kind of
climber would appear, with black hands, inflamed eyes, and a mind
stripped, by passion, of all logic. Gladly he found it possible to bring
to this new task the energy with which he had attacked the narrower
puzzles of the university and Wall Street.

Sylvia had called him the most selfish person she had ever met, and, as
he tried to strip from the facts of the world's disease the perpetual,
clinging propaganda, he applied her charge to his soul. From the first
he had been infected, yet his selfishness had been neither inefficient
nor dangerous. This increasing pestilence was. Lambert guessed what he
was at, and George jeered at him for his war madness, but Lambert had
found again an absorbing interest. Because of his missing leg it was
rather pitiful to watch his enthusiasm for a reawakened activity.

"You've got to see Harvard swallow your old Tiger, George," he said one
Friday. "After all, why not? You don't need to come out to the Alstons,
although I'm not sure there would be any harm in that. Talk's about
done, I fancy."

George flushed.

"Do you know I'd love to spill you again, Lambert? I'd like to bring you
down so hard the seismographs would make a record."

"Too bad we can't try to kill each other," Lambert said, regretfully.
"Why not watch younger brutes?"

"I've wanted it for days," George acknowledged. "I'll wire Squibs."

George was perfectly sure that Squibs knew nothing, for he wasn't
socially curious, and Betty would have hesitated to talk about what had
happened even to Mrs. Squibs, yet he was cons