"Well?"
"I know from what you've taken me--I can never be what you are!"
"Therefore you won't try to be anything? Is that it?"
"Oh, no! I'll try to be all that I can, but--I don't belong with you. I'm of another class--"
"Oh, bosh! Cut that out, son! Real men don't talk like that. You're a better man now than any of the pedigreed dudes I know of, and as for taints in the blood, I could tell you of some of the sons of great men who have taints as bad as any child of the slums. Young man, you can be whatever you set out to be in this world! Remember that."
"Everyone does not feel that way," said Michael with conviction, though he was conscious of great pleasure in Endicott's hearty words.
"Who, for instance?" asked Endicott looking at him sharply.
Michael was silent. He could not tell him.
"Who?" asked the insistent voice once more.
"The world!" evaded Michael.
"The world is brainless. You can make the world think what you like, son, remember that! Here we are. Would you like to come aboard?"
But Michael stood back.
"I think I will wait here," he said gravely. It had come to him that Mrs. Endicott would be there. He must not intrude, not even to see Starr once more. Besides, she had made it a point of honor for him to keep away from her daughter. He had no choice but to obey.
"Very well," said Endicott, "but see you don't lose yourself again. I want to see you about something. I'll not be long. It must be nearly time for starting." He hurried away and Michael stood on the edge of the throng looking up at the great floating village.
It was his first view of an ocean-going steamer at close range and everything about it interested him. He wished he might have gone aboard and looked the vessel over. He would like to know about the engines and see the cabins, and especially the steerage about which he had read so much. But perhaps there would be an opportunity again. Surely there would be. He would go to Ellis Island, too, and see the emigrants as they came into the country, seeking a new home where they had been led to expect to find comfort and plenty of work, and finding none; landing most of them, inevitably, in the slums of the cities where the population was already congested and where vice and disease stood ready to prey upon them. Michael had been spending enough time in the alleys of the metropolis to be already deeply interested in the problem of the city, and deeply pained by its sorrows.