From doing the thing for the need’s sake, he came to doing the thing for the thing’s sake.  He found himself regretting as the time drew near for him to go back to his lecture-room and his inhibition.  And he often found himself waiting with anticipation for the dreamy time to pass when he could cross the Slot and cut loose and play the devil.  He was not wicked, but as “Big” Bill Totts he did a myriad things that Freddie Drummond would never have been permitted to do.  Moreover, Freddie Drummond never would have wanted to do them.  That was the strangest part of his discovery.  Freddie Drummond and Bill Totts were two totally different creatures.  The desires and tastes and impulses of each ran counter to the other’s.  Bill Totts could shirk at a job with clear conscience, while Freddie Drummond condemned shirking as vicious, criminal, and un-American, and devoted whole chapters to condemnation of the vice.  Freddie Drummond did not care for dancing, but Bill Totts never missed the nights at the various dancing clubs, such as The Magnolia, The Western Star, and The Elite; while he won a massive silver cup, standing thirty inches high, for being the best-sustained character at the Butchers and Meat Workers’ annual grand masked ball.  And Bill Totts liked the girls and the girls liked him, while Freddie Drummond enjoyed playing the ascetic in this particular, was open in his opposition to equal suffrage, and cynically bitter in his secret condemnation of coeducation.

Freddie Drummond changed his manners with his dress, and without effort.  When he entered the obscure little room used for his transformation scenes, he carried himself just a bit too stiffly.  He was too erect, his shoulders were an inch too far back, while his face was grave, almost harsh, and practically expressionless.  But when he emerged in Bill Totts’ clothes he was another creature.  Bill Totts did not slouch, but somehow his whole form limbered up and became graceful.  The very sound of the voice was changed, and the laugh was loud and hearty, while loose speech and an occasional oath were as a matter of course on his lips.  Also, Bill Totts was a trifle inclined to late hours, and at times, in saloons, to be good-naturedly bellicose with other workmen.  Then, too, at Sunday picnics or when coming home from the show, either arm betrayed a practised familiarity in stealing around girls’ waists, while he displayed a wit keen and delightful in the flirtatious badinage that was expected of a good fellow in his class.

So thoroughly was Bill Totts himself, so thoroughly a workman, a genuine denizen of South of the Slot, that he was as class-conscious as the average of his kind, and his hatred for a scab even exceeded that of the average loyal union man.  During the Water Front Strike, Freddie Drummond was somehow able to stand apart from the unique combination, and, coldly critical, watch Bill Totts hilariously slug scab longshoremen.  For Bill Totts was a dues-paying member of the Longshoremen