We shall have a
good enough time. And you'll have a chance to get better acquainted with
Admiral Hawkins. That's a rare character, Mr. Tracy--one of the rarest
and most engaging characters the world has produced. You'll find him
worth studying. I've studied him ever since he was a child and have
always found him developing. I really consider that one of the main
things that has enabled me to master the difficult science of
character-reading was the livid interest I always felt in that boy
and the baffling inscrutabilities of his ways and inspirations."
Tracy was not hearing a word. His spirits were gone, he was desolate.
"Yes, a most wonderful character. Concealment--that's the basis of it.
Always the first thing you want to do is to find the keystone a man's
character is built on--then you've got it. No misleading and apparently
inconsistent peculiarities can fool you then. What do you read on the
Senator's surface? Simplicity; a kind of rank and protuberant
simplicity; whereas, in fact, that's one of the deepest minds in the
world. A perfectly honest man--an absolutely honest and honorable man--
and yet without doubt the profoundest master of dissimulation the world
has ever seen.
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