human countenance of Democracy as the supercilious smirk is of the homely, inhuman countenance of caste.  Arthur did not want to get up where Ross was seated in such elegant state; he wanted to tear Ross, all the Rosses down.  “The damn fool!” he fumed.  “He goes lounging about, wasting the money we make.  It’s all wrong.  And if we weren’t a herd of tame asses, we wouldn’t permit it.”

And now he began to feel that he was the superior of this showy idler, that his own garments and dinner pail and used hands were the titles to a nobility which could justly look down upon those who filched from the treasury of the toiler the means to buzz and flit and glitter in dronelike ease.  “As for these Whitneys,” he thought, “mother’s right about them.”  Then he called out in a tone of good-natured contempt, which his stature and his powerful frame and strong, handsome face made effective:  “Hello, Ross!  When did you come to town?”

“This morning,” replied Ross.  “I heard you were working, but I had no idea it was—­I’ve just been to your house, looking for you, and was on the way to the factory.  Father told me to see that you get a suitable position.  I’m going to Howells and arrange it.  You know, father’s been in the East and very busy.”

“Don’t bother,” said Arthur, and there was no pretense in his air of ease.  “I’ve got just what I want.  I am carrying out father’s plan, and I’m far enough into it to see that he was right.”

In unbelieving silence Ross looked down at his former equal with condescending sympathy; how well Arthur knew that look!  And he remembered that he had once, so short a time before, regarded it as kindly, and the thoughts behind it as generous!

“I like my job,” he continued.  “It gives me a sense of doing something useful—­of getting valuable education.  Already I’ve had a thousand damn-fool ideas knocked out of my head.”

“I suppose it is interesting,” said Ross, with gracious encouragement.  “The associations must be rather trying.”

“They were rather trying,” replied Arthur with a smile.  “Trying to the other men, until I got my bearings and lost the silliest of the silly ideas put in my head by college and that sort of thing.  But, now that I realize I’m an apprentice and not a gentleman deigning to associate with the common herd, I think I’m less despicable—­and less ridiculous.  Still, I’m finding it hard to get it through my head that practically everything I learned is false and must be unlearned.”

“Don’t let your bitterness over the injustice to you swing you too far the other way, Artie,” said Ross with a faint smile in his eyes and a suspicious, irritating friendliness in his voice.  “You’ll soon work out of that class and back where you belong.”