ions to the class of boys in a public high
school, why do you send your nephew here?" he asked.

"Because it--it is convenient," she stammered.

"I must confess, I wanted him to go to a boarding-school."

"Which one?"

"St. Gregory Episcopalian Institute."

The principal's mouth quivered with the smile he could hardly suppress:

"Episcopalian? The boy is a Jew, is he not?"

Mrs. Haberman sat up very straight. "His parents had Jewish
affiliations, I believe. They are both dead."

"I see." And I am sure he really did see! For a moment later he put a
deft end to the interview.

"Madam," he said, "this boy must take his chances like any other boy in
the school. He must make his own friends from among his own sort. He
must fight his own adversaries among those who are unlike him. That is
the law of life as well as of every school. If he is attracted to the
undesirable element, he would find it and mingle with it at St.
Gregory's as quickly as he would here. I have a fine lot of youths here.
I am proud of them--even of those who fail to come up to the standards.
I won't try to talk to you about the splendid spirit of
democracy--because you evidently don't want the boy to be democratic.
You don't want him to stand on his own merits as a Jew. If he did that,
he would be putting up an honest, spirited battle. I only know that all
men and all boys like an honest stand and a fair fight for the things
worth protecting. I know that if I were a Jew, I should never--well,
that's your business, not mine." He took out of his desk a little
leather-covered book. "It may interest you to know that this high school
is ranked very high scholastically." He turned the pages. "Also that the
St. Gregory Institution is ranked among the most unsuccessful schools in
the country in the matter of scholarship." He showed her a table of
figures, then closed the book and put it away, smiling. "Also," he
finished, "that I am an Episcopalian, and that I should rather send a
son or a nephew of mine to prison than to so harmful a place as St.
Gregory."

His remarks did not altogether convince my aunt, of course; and he said
no more, except to assure her that he would follow my course in his
school with much interest, and would do all in his power to make me
manly. To Mrs. Haberman, the promise to make a man of me meant little.

She left me at the school door, stepping gingerly across the pavement
into her limousine in order to escape the contami