But Mr. Morse was not content.  He did not like the laziness and the disinclination for sober, legitimate work of this prospective son-in-law of his, for whose ideas he had no respect and of whose nature he had no understanding.  So he turned the conversation to Herbert Spencer.  Judge Blount ably seconded him, and Martin, whose ears had pricked at the first mention of the philosopher’s name, listened to the judge enunciate a grave and complacent diatribe against Spencer.  From time to time Mr. Morse glanced at Martin, as much as to say, “There, my boy, you see.”

“Chattering daws,” Martin muttered under his breath, and went on talking with Ruth and Arthur.

But the long day and the “real dirt” of the night before were telling upon him; and, besides, still in his burnt mind was what had made him angry when he read it on the car.

“What is the matter?” Ruth asked suddenly alarmed by the effort he was making to contain himself.

“There is no god but the Unknowable, and Herbert Spencer is its prophet,” Judge Blount was saying at that moment.

Martin turned upon him.

“A cheap judgment,” he remarked quietly.  “I heard it first in the City Hall Park, on the lips of a workingman who ought to have known better.  I have heard it often since, and each time the clap-trap of it nauseates me.  You ought to be ashamed of yourself.  To hear that great and noble man’s name upon your lips is like finding a dew-drop in a cesspool.  You are disgusting.”

It was like a thunderbolt.  Judge Blount glared at him with apoplectic countenance, and silence reigned.  Mr. Morse was secretly pleased.  He could see that his daughter was shocked.  It was what he wanted to do—­to bring out the innate ruffianism of this man he did not like.

Ruth’s hand sought Martin’s beseechingly under the table, but his blood was up.  He was inflamed by the intellectual pretence and fraud of those who sat in the high places.  A Superior Court Judge!  It was only several years before that he had looked up from the mire at such glorious entities and deemed them gods.

Judge Blount recovered himself and attempted to go on, addressing himself to Martin with an assumption of politeness that the latter understood was for the benefit of the ladies.  Even this added to his anger.  Was there no honesty in the world?

“You can’t discuss Spencer with me,” he cried.  “You do not know any more about Spencer than do his own countrymen.  But it is no fault of yours, I grant.  It is just a phase of the contemptible ignorance of the times.  I ran across a sample of it on my way here this evening.  I was reading an essay by Saleeby on Spencer.  You should read it.  It is accessible to all men.  You can buy it in any book-store or draw it from the public library.  You would feel ashamed of your paucity of abuse and ignorance of that noble man compared with what Saleeby has collected on the subject.  It is a record of shame that would shame your shame.”