being, with scarce anything in common with that boastful foolish
youngster whose troubles I recall. I see him vulgarly theatrical,
egotistical, insincere, indeed I do not like him save with
that instinctive material sympathy that is the fruit of incessant
intimacy. Because he was myself I may be able to feel and write
understandingly about motives that will put him out of sympathy
with nearly every reader, but why should I palliate or defend his
quality?

Always, I say, I did the talking, and it would have amazed me
beyond measure if any one had told me that mine was not the greater
intelligence in these wordy encounters. Parload was a quiet youth,
and stiff and restrained in all things, while I had that supreme
gift for young men and democracies, the gift of copious expression.
Parload I diagnosed in my secret heart as a trifle dull; he posed
as pregnant quiet, I thought, and was obsessed by the congenial
notion of "scientific caution." I did not remark that while my hands
were chiefly useful for gesticulation or holding a pen Parload's
hands could do all sorts of things, and I did not think therefore
that fibers must run from those fingers to something in his brain.
Nor, though I bragged perpetually of my shorthand, of my literature,
of my indispensable share in Rawdon's business, did Parload lay
stress on the conics and calculus he "mugged" in the organized
science school. Parload is a famous man now, a great figure in
a great time, his work upon intersecting radiations has broadened
the intellectual horizon of mankind for ever, and I, who am at best
a hewer of intellectual wood, a drawer of living water, can smile,
and he can smile, to think how I patronized and posed and jabbered
over him in the darkness of those early days.