o the
young professor of English with whom he talked.

But Martin was not concerned with appearances! He had been swift to note
the other's trained mind and to appreciate his command of knowledge.
Furthermore, Professor Caldwell did not realize Martin's concept of the
average English professor. Martin wanted him to talk shop, and, though
he seemed averse at first, succeeded in making him do it. For Martin did
not see why a man should not talk shop.

"It's absurd and unfair," he had told Ruth weeks before, "this objection
to talking shop. For what reason under the sun do men and women come
together if not for the exchange of the best that is in them? And the
best that is in them is what they are interested in, the thing by which
they make their living, the thing they've specialized on and sat up days
and nights over, and even dreamed about. Imagine Mr. Butler living up to
social etiquette and enunciating his views on Paul Verlaine or the German
drama or the novels of D'Annunzio. We'd be bored to death. I, for one,
if I must listen to Mr. Butler, prefer to hear him talk about his law.
It's the best that is in him, and life is so short that I want the best
of every man and woman I meet."

"But," Ruth had objected, "there are the topics of general interest to
all."

"There, you mistake," he had rushed on. "All persons in society, all
cliques in society--or, rather, nearly all persons and cliques--ape their
betters. Now, who are the best betters? The idlers, the wealthy idlers.
They do not know, as a rule, the things known by the persons who are
doing something in the world. To listen to conversation about such
things would mean to be bored, wherefore the idlers decree that such
things are shop and must not be talked about. Likewise they decree the
things that are not shop and which may be talked about, and those things
are the latest operas, latest novels, cards, billiards, cocktails,
automobiles, horse shows, trout fishing, tuna-fishing, big-game shooting,
yacht sailing, and so forth--and mark you, these are the things the
idlers know. In all truth, they constitute the shop-talk of the idlers.
And the funniest part of it is that many of the clever people, and all
the would-be clever people, allow the idlers so to impose upon them. As
for me, I want the best a man's got in him, call it shop vulgarity or
anything you please."

And Ruth had not understood. This attack of his on the established had
seemed