His temperament was sensitive to slights and he fell into one of his rare depressions. One afternoon he took the car for the city. He wanted to get away from himself and from his environment.
A chill mist was in the air. Drawn by the bright lights, Jeff entered a saloon and sat down in an alcove with his arms on the table. Why did they hammer him so because he told the truth as he saw it? Why must he toady to the ideas of Bland as everybody else at the University seemed to do? He was not respectable enough for them. That was the trouble. They were pushing him back into the gutter whence he had emerged. Wild fragmentary thoughts chased themselves across the record of his brain.
Almost before he knew it he had ordered and drunk a highball. Immediately his horizon lightened. With the second glass his depression vanished. He felt equal to anything.
It was past nine o'clock when he took the University car. As chance had it Professor Perkins and he were the only passengers. The teacher of Economics bowed to the flushed youth and buried himself in a book. It was not till they both rose to leave at the University station that he noticed the condition of Farnum. Even then he stood in momentary doubt.
With a maudlin laugh Jeff quieted any possible explanation of sickness.
“Been havin' little spree down town, Profeshor. Good deal like one ev'body been havin' out here. Yours shpiritual; mine shpirituous. Joke, see! Play on wor'd. Shpiritual—shpirituous.”
“You're intoxicated, sir,” Perkin's told him sternly.
“Betcherlife I am, old cock! Ever get shp—shp—shpiflicated yourself?”
“Go home and go to bed, sir!”
“Whaffor? 'S early yet. 'S reasonable man I ask whaffor?”