suddenly he
was ashamed. He turned on his heel.

"I'm leaving," he said shortly.

"Karl--my boy," begged Rudolph Krassin, struggling to his feet. "You
can't! That lad in there--he--"

But Karl was too angry to reason.

"To hell with him!" he raged, "and to hell with you! I'm through!"

He stamped from the room and out into the eery shadows of the Way. Karl
was done with his old life. He'd go to the upper levels and claim his
rights. Some day, too, he'd punish the man who'd stolen them away. God!
Born to the purple! To think he'd missed it all! Probably was kidnaped
by the old rascal he'd been calling uncle. But he'd find out. Rudolph
didn't have to explain. Fingerprint records would clear his name;
establish his rightful station in life. He dived into a passage that
would lead him to one of the express lifts. He'd soon be overhead.

* * * * *

A sergeant of the red police looked up startled from his desk as a tall
youth in the gray denim of forty levels below appeared before him.

"Well?" he growled. The stalwart young worker had stared belligerently
and insolently, he thought.

"I want to check my fingerprint record, Sergeant."

"Hm. Pretty cocky, aren't you? The records for such as you are down
below, where you belong."

"Not mine, I think."

"So? And who the devil are you?"

"That's what I'm here to find out. I've got a triangle branded on my
right hip."

"A what?"

"Triangle. Here--look!"

The amazing youngster had raised his jacket and was pulling at his
shirt. The sergeant stared at what was revealed, his eyes bulging as he
looked.

"Lord!" he gasped, "a Van Dorn--in the gray!"

Quickly he turned to the radiovision and made rapid connection with
several persons in turn--important ones, by the appearance of the
features of each in the brilliant disc of the instrument.

Karl was confused by the sudden turn of things. The sergeant talked so
rapidly he could not catch the sense of his words. And that name, Van
Dorn, eluded him. He knew he had heard it before, in the little shop
down there in Astor Way. But he could not place it. He wished fervently
that he had paid more attention to the desires of old Rudolph; had
studied more and read the books the old man had begged him to read. His
new surroundings confused him, too, and he knew that he was the center
of some great new excitement.

* * * * *

Then they were in the room; two