This meant the overturning of his whole life, for Evan Pell, besides being logical, possessed another quality of greater value—when he perceived that any act was the act to be done, he set about doing it to the best of his ability. This was not courage; it was not resolution; it was natural reaction.
At three o’clock he retired. It was with a sense of humiliation he lay down on his bed. Instead of being, as he had fancied, a wonderful and superior being, he was negligible. His resolution, taken with characteristic finality, was that in the morning he would begin to be the thing he was not. This was very fine, but it possessed one defect: It was purely academic. It emanated wholly from the head, and not in any fraction whatever from the heart. Emotionally he did not give a hoot what became of humanity.
He awoke to a strange world in the morning—felt like a fresh arrival in a strange planet. His duty was to find out what the planet was about and, so to speak, make preparations to take out naturalization papers. How to begin?... Well, he must eat, and therefore it was essential to continue at his present employment. He thought about his present employment superciliously until he caught himself at it; then he considered his employment logically. Hitherto he had taken no interest in it, except as it offered a challenge to his intelligence. Carmel had doubted his ability to do the work, and, in irritation, he had essayed to prove he could do that as well as anything else. The thrashing he had taken from the fists of Deputy Jenney had reached deep enough to touch his latent manhood—to blow upon the ember derived from some sturdy ancestor.... Now he considered briefly the business of news purveying, and was able to see how serviceable it was to mankind. The business of a newspaper, as he saw it, was to give to the community the agenda of the world, and, by editorial argument, to assist in the business of directing public opinion.... This was a worthy business.... More specifically he gave thought to the Free Press and what it was trying to do. Carmel, rushing in where angels feared to tread, was endeavoring to cure a definite, visible sore on the public body. For the first time he viewed the activities of Gibeon’s liquor smugglers as a matter of right and wrong, and not as a problem set in a textbook. If he could help to abolish this malignant sore he would be performing real service.... That aspect of matters interested him. He found that the mere mental exercise of thinking about humanity gave one an emotional interest in humanity.... He was progressing.
One could not attain to results in a laboratory without intimate contact with specimens; one could not attain to results in the world without intimate contacts with human beings. Therefore Evan made up his mind to procure for himself a mantle of sociability.... He wore it to the office, and Tubal was the first human being to see it exhibited. Tubal was mystified.
“Good morning, Tubal,” said Evan, with painstaking courtesy. “How do you do this morning? Er—we must become better acquainted, Tubal.... I trust I make myself clear. Yes, yes. I wish, at your leisure, to converse with you—er—regarding—ah—many things. Yes, indeed.... I wish to obtain your viewpoint.”
Tubal stared, and reared back on his heels mentally.
“Don’t feel dizzy or nothin’, do ye?” he asked.
“I am perfectly well. Why do you ask?”
“Aw—nothin’.... Say!... Looky here. Viewpoint, is it? Aw....”
“What I wish to convey,” said Evan, and he unmasked a smile which was decidedly to his credit, “is—that I wish to be friends.”