dropping my eyes, and I was quite relieved when I passed him on and
turned to greet Bishop Morehouse--a favorite of mine, a sweet and
serious man of middle age, Christ-like in appearance and goodness, and a
scholar as well.

But this boldness that I took to be presumption was a vital clew to the
nature of Ernest Everhard. He was simple, direct, afraid of nothing, and
he refused to waste time on conventional mannerisms. "You pleased me,"
he explained long afterward; "and why should I not fill my eyes with
that which pleases me?" I have said that he was afraid of nothing. He
was a natural aristocrat--and this in spite of the fact that he was in
the camp of the non-aristocrats. He was a superman, a blond beast
such as Nietzsche* has described, and in addition he was aflame with
democracy.

* Friederich Nietzsche, the mad philosopher of the
nineteenth century of the Christian Era, who caught wild
glimpses of truth, but who, before he was done, reasoned
himself around the great circle of human thought and off
into madness.

In the interest of meeting the other guests, and what of my unfavorable
impression, I forgot all about the working-class philosopher, though
once or twice at table I noticed him--especially the twinkle in his eye
as he listened to the talk first of one minister and then of another. He
has humor, I thought, and I almost forgave him his clothes. But the time
went by, and the dinner went by, and he never opened his mouth to speak,
while the ministers talked interminably about the working class and its
relation to the church, and what the church had done and was doing for
it. I noticed that my father was annoyed because Ernest did not talk.