“Well, not too popular,” I smiled. “I think it would do me good to use my mind, to chew on something. Besides, you can help me over the tough places.”
He returned that afternoon with two books.
“I've been rather fortunate in getting these,” he said. “One is fairly elementary. They had it at the library. And the other—” he paused delicately, “I didn't know whether you might be interested in the latest speculations on the subject.”
“Speculations?” I repeated.
“Well, the philosophy of it.” He almost achieved a blush under his tan. He held out the second book on the philosophy of the organism. “It's the work of a German scientist who stands rather high. I read it last winter, and it interested me. I got it from a clergyman I know who is spending the winter in Santa Barbara.”
“A clergyman!”
Strafford laughed. “An 'advanced' clergyman,” he explained. “Oh, a lot of them are reading science now. I think it's pretty decent of them.”
I looked at Strafford, who towered six feet three, and it suddenly struck me that he might be one of the forerunners of a type our universities were about to turn out. I wondered what he believed. Of one thing I was sure, that he was not in the medical profession to make money. That was a faith in itself.
I began with the elementary work.
“You'd better borrow a Century Dictionary,” I said.