"To figure the tariff on human conduct, to grade and classify the acts of life, to quote the rates on happiness and misery in trainload lots. That's what I'm going to do," he concluded, with a glow upon his face.
But by this time a smile of cynic pity had appeared upon the face of the railroad man.
"Hampstead," he exclaimed sharply, with a mimic shudder and a shrug of relief as if he had just escaped something, "you're not an actor. You're a preacher!"
John gasped.
"You're a moralist," asserted Scofield accusingly, "a puritanical, Sunday-school, twaddling moralist. I have misjudged you. I wouldn't want you around at all."
With a look akin to disgust upon his face, the railroad man made a motion with his fingers in the air as if ridding them of something sticky, and arose, not abruptly but decisively, making clear that the interview had proved disappointingly unprofitable and was therefore at an end.
John also arose, bewildered by the sudden change in Scofield's attitude—a change which he resented, and also the ground of it. He a preacher? The idea was ridiculous.
Besides, it makes an astonishing difference when one has been stubbornly refusing an offer to have the offer coolly and decisively withdrawn. Something subtly psychological made him want the offer back. The door of opportunity had been closed behind him with a snap so vicious that he wanted to turn and kick it open.
But the thin, talon-like hand of Scofield was hooking the young man's rather flaccid palm for a moment.
"Remember what I tell you," he barked out in parting. "You're not an actor. You're not a railroad man. You're a preacher!"
The last word was flung bitingly, like an epithet.
John, feeling uncomfortable, walked out and along one
