“Not that I bother my head about their everlasting discussions,” he said at the end of a block.  “I’m not interested in book philosophy.  But you’ll find these fellows intelligences and not bourgeois swine.  But watch out, they’ll talk an arm off of you on any subject under the sun.”

“Hope Norton’s there,” he panted a little later, resisting Martin’s effort to relieve him of the two demijohns.  “Norton’s an idealist—­a Harvard man.  Prodigious memory.  Idealism led him to philosophic anarchy, and his family threw him off.  Father’s a railroad president and many times millionnaire, but the son’s starving in ’Frisco, editing an anarchist sheet for twenty-five a month.”

Martin was little acquainted in San Francisco, and not at all south of Market; so he had no idea of where he was being led.

“Go ahead,” he said; “tell me about them beforehand.  What do they do for a living?  How do they happen to be here?”

“Hope Hamilton’s there.”  Brissenden paused and rested his hands.  “Strawn-Hamilton’s his name—­hyphenated, you know—­comes of old Southern stock.  He’s a tramp—­laziest man I ever knew, though he’s clerking, or trying to, in a socialist cooperative store for six dollars a week.  But he’s a confirmed hobo.  Tramped into town.  I’ve seen him sit all day on a bench and never a bite pass his lips, and in the evening, when I invited him to dinner—­restaurant two blocks away—­have him say, ’Too much trouble, old man.  Buy me a package of cigarettes instead.’  He was a Spencerian like you till Kreis turned him to materialistic monism.  I’ll start him on monism if I can.  Norton’s another monist—­only he affirms naught but spirit.  He can give Kreis and Hamilton all they want, too.”

“Who is Kreis?” Martin asked.

“His rooms we’re going to.  One time professor—­fired from university—­usual story.  A mind like a steel trap.  Makes his living any old way.  I know he’s been a street fakir when he was down.  Unscrupulous.  Rob a corpse of a shroud—­anything.  Difference between him—­and the bourgeoisie is that he robs without illusion.  He’ll talk Nietzsche, or Schopenhauer, or Kant, or anything, but the only thing in this world, not excepting Mary, that he really cares for, is his monism.  Haeckel is his little tin god.  The only way to insult him is to take a slap at Haeckel.”

“Here’s the hang-out.”  Brissenden rested his demijohn at the upstairs entrance, preliminary to the climb.  It was the usual two-story corner building, with a saloon and grocery underneath.  “The gang lives here—­got the whole upstairs to themselves.  But Kreis is the only one who has two rooms.  Come on.”

No lights burned in the upper hall, but Brissenden threaded the utter blackness like a familiar ghost.  He stopped to speak to Martin.

“There’s one fellow—­Stevens—­a theosophist.  Makes a pretty tangle when he gets going.  Just now he’s dish-washer in a restaurant.  Likes a good cigar.  I’ve seen him eat in a ten-cent hash-house and pay fifty cents for the cigar he smoked afterward.  I’ve got a couple in my pocket for him, if he shows up.”