* * * * *
On a bench in the park sat Turner, the maker of violins, the man who
dreamed of the rediscovery of the varnish of Cremona, talking to
McGregor, son of the Pennsylvania miner.
It was a Sunday afternoon and the park was vibrant with life. All day
the street cars had been unloading Chicagoans at the park entrance.
They came in pairs and in parties, young men with their sweethearts
and fathers with families at their heels. Now at the end of the day
they continued to come, a steady stream of humanity flowing along the
gravel walk past the bench where the two men sat in talk. Through the
stream and crossing it went another stream homeward bound. Babies
cried. Fathers called to the children at play on the grass. Cars
coming to the park filled went away filled.
McGregor looked about him and thought of himself and of the restless
moving people. In him there was none of that vague fear of the
multitude common to many solitary souls. His contempt of men and of
the lives lived by men reinforced his native boldness. The odd little
rounding of the shoulders of even the athletic young men made him
straighten with pride his own shoulders and fat and lean, tall and
short, he thought of all men as counters in some vast games at which
he was presently to be a master player.
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