rades in Russia might have warned you. But your class, of course,
never is warned."

"Dear me!" broke in Harvey D. "You don't mean to say that conditions are
as bad here as they were in Russia?"

"Worse--a thousand times worse," replied Merle. "We have here an
autocracy more hateful, more hideous in its injustices, than ever the
Romanoffs dreamed of. And how much longer do you think these serfs of
ours will suffer it? I tell you they are roused this instant! They await
only a word!"

"Are you going to speak it?" demanded Sharon.

"Now, now!" soothed Harvey D. as Merle turned heatedly upon Sharon, who
thus escaped blasting.

"I am not here to be baited," protested Merle.

"Of course not, my boy," said the distressed Harvey D.

Merle faced the latter.

"I need not say that this decision of yours--this abrupt withdrawal, of
your cooperation--must make a profound difference in our relations. I
feel the cause too deeply for it to be otherwise. You understand?"

"He's casting you off," said Sharon, "like the other one said he would."

"_Ssh_!" It was Gideon.

"I shall stay no longer to listen to mere buffoonery," and for the last
time that night Merle swept back the ever-falling lock. He paused at the
door. "The old spirit of intolerance," he said. "You are the sort who
wouldn't accept truth in France in 1789, or in Russia the other day."
And so he left them.

"My!" exclaimed Gideon, forcefully.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Harvey D.

"Shucks!" exclaimed Sharon.

"But the boy is goaded to desperation!" protested Harvey D.

"Listen!" urged Sharon. "Remember what his own father said! He's only
half goaded. The other half is showing off--to himself and us. That man
knew his own flesh and blood. And listen again! You sit tight if you
want to get him back to reason!"

"Brother, I think you're right," said Gideon.

"Dear me!" said Harvey D. He straightened an etched cathedral, and then
with a brush from the hearth swept cigar ashes deeper into the rug about
the chair of Sharon. "Dear me!" he sighed again.

* * * * *

Early the following morning Merle Whipple halted before the show window
of Newbern's chief establishment purveying ready-made clothing for men.
He was about to undergo a novel experience and one that would have
profoundly shocked his New York tailors. There were suits in the window,
fitted to forms with glovelike accuracy. He studied these
disapprovingly, then entered t