the while for some quick danger of death to threaten so that he might
spring in and save her father. On another night, his vigil was rewarded
by a glimpse of Ruth through a second-story window. He saw only her head
and shoulders, and her arms raised as she fixed her hair before a mirror.
It was only for a moment, but it was a long moment to him, during which
his blood turned to wine and sang through his veins. Then she pulled
down the shade. But it was her room--he had learned that; and thereafter
he strayed there often, hiding under a dark tree on the opposite side of
the street and smoking countless cigarettes. One afternoon he saw her
mother coming out of a bank, and received another proof of the enormous
distance that separated Ruth from him. She was of the class that dealt
with banks. He had never been inside a bank in his life, and he had an
idea that such institutions were frequented only by the very rich and the
very powerful.

In one way, he had undergone a moral revolution. Her cleanness and
purity had reacted upon him, and he felt in his being a crying need to be
clean. He must be that if he were ever to be worthy of breathing the
same air with her. He washed his teeth, and scrubbed his hands with a
kitchen scrub-brush till he saw a nail-brush in a drug-store window and
divined its use. While purchasing it, the clerk glanced at his nails,
suggested a nail-file, and so he became possessed of an additional toilet-
tool. He ran across a book in the library on the care of the body, and
promptly developed a penchant for a cold-water bath every morning, much
to the amazement of Jim, and to the bewilderment of Mr. Higginbotham, who
was not in sympathy with such high-fangled notions and who seriously
debated whether or not he should charge Martin extra for the water.
Another stride was in the direction of creased trousers. Now that Martin
was aroused in such matters, he swiftly noted the difference between the
baggy knees of the trousers worn by the working class and the straight