He knew, however, that he was not much liked, and this naturally gave a certain coldness to his behaviour.

Perhaps the very first man for whom he found himself entertaining something like warmth of kindness was Luke Ackroyd.
Ackroyd came to the factory shortly after Gilbert had gone to live in Walnut Tree Walk, and in the course of a few weeks the two had got into the habit of walking their common way homewards together.

As might have been anticipated, it was a character very unlike his own which had at length attached Gilbert.

To begin with, Ackroyd was pronounced in radicalism, was aggressive and at times noisy; then, he was far from possessing Grail's moral stability, and did not care to conceal his ways of amusing himself; lastly, his intellectual tastes were of the scientific order.

Yet Gilbert from the first liked him; he felt that there was no little good in the fellow, if only it could be fostered at the expense of his weaker characteristics.