.. but the master would have none of it ... he told me to
look better to my conduct or he would have to expel me from the
community....
"Gregory," he ended, calling me by my name, "somehow I never quite _get
you_ ... most of the time you are refined and almost over-gentle ... you
know and love poetry and art and the worthwhile things ... but then
there's also the hoodlum in you ... the dirty Hooligan--" his eyes
blazed with just rebuke.... I trod out silently, sick of myself, at
heart ... as I have often, often been.
* * * * *
After that, Pfeiler avoided me. I went up to him in apology. Most
contritely I said I was sorry.
"You are a fraud," he cried at me, spluttering, almost gnashing his
teeth in fury, "you go around here, pretending you are a poet, and have
the soul of a thug, a brute, a coward and bully ... please don't speak
to me any more as long as I'm here ... you only pretend interest in
spiritual and intellectual things, always for some brutal reason ...
even now you are planning something base, some diabolical betrayal of
the Master, perhaps, or of all of us.... I myself have advised Mr.
Spalton, for the good of his community to send you back to the tramps
and jail-birds from whom you come ... you scum! you filthy pestilence!"
His head was shaking like an oscillating toy ... his eyes were starting
from his head through force of his invective .
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