At one time in his life he had been just a common hoodlum, the leader of a gang that worried the police and terrorized honest, working-class householders.

But his ideals had changed.

He glanced about him at the well-bred, well-dressed men and women, and breathed into his lungs the atmosphere of culture and refinement, and at the same moment the ghost of his early youth, in stiff- rim and square-cut, with swagger and toughness, stalked across the room.
This figure, of the corner hoodlum, he saw merge into himself, sitting and talking with an actual university professor.
For, after all, he had never found his permanent abiding place.

He had fitted in wherever he found himself, been a favorite always and everywhere by virtue of holding his own at work and at play and by his willingness and ability to fight for his rights and command respect.

But he had never taken root.