FROM THE LIFE
course, unconsciously, sympathizing with the victims of social injustice as he had sympathized with his mother and himself. And that, I believe, is the reason why he "never thought" of his father again.
Moreover, it was probably his early revolt against paternal injustice that inspired him with the ambition to be a lawyer so that he might be able to defend himself and others against wrongs, and help to administer justice equitably.
I advance the theory because I have found a similar transference in many other reformers.
4
In any case he arrived in the city that afternoon in the rain and set about finding work. It was about four o'clock, according to all accounts, when he came into the office of McPhee Harris and asked if they needed an office-boy. No one pretends to know what attracted him to that particular door, but I venture to suggest that it was because of the word "Defense" in the sign, "Purity Defense League." Harris was then counsel for the League. He remembers being instantly struck by the boy's air of self-reliance. "He was dripping wet," Harris says, "his hair was in his eyes, and his clothes were pathetic. But he stood up there and confronted me like a young David. He had wonderful eyes—always. I couldn't have turned him away."
Harris employed him, and, finding that he had no place to sleep, Harris sent him with a note to
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