His English was a marvel of ignorant ornateness, like his vest and his watch-chain and rings.  He had, apparently, no family ties.  Spalton became his father, his mother, his brother, his sister, almost his God.  There was nothing the Master said or did that was not perfect ... he would stand with worship and adoration written large on his swarthy, great face, listening to Spalton’s most trivial words....

Otherwise, he was Gabby Jack ... talking ... talking ... talking ... with everybody he met ... enquiring ... questioning ... taking notes in a large, crude, misspelling hand ... trying himself to write....

We ran away from him ...  Spalton ran away from him ... “this fellow will be the death of me,” he remarked to me, one afternoon, with a light of pleasure and pride in his eyes, however, at being so worshipped.  “Ah, Razorre, beware of the ignorant disciple!”

There was nothing Jack would not do for Spalton.  He sought out opportunities and occasions for serving him.

And he would guide visitors over the establishment.  And, coming to the office where Spalton usually sat and worked, he was heard to say once, with a wide-spread, reverential sweep of the hand—­“and this, ladies and gents, is the (his voice dropping to a reverential whisper) ’Sancta Sanctoria.’”

Jack could not see so well with one eye as he could with the other.  A cataract was there which gave that eye the appearance of a milky-coloured, poached egg....

Coming home from Buffalo one evening, he stepped down on the wrong side of the train, in the dusk ... perhaps from his eagerness to sit by his prophet at supper again that night—­there being too long a line leaving at the station, ahead of him.

A freight was drawing out on the track opposite.  And Gabby was so huge that he was rolled like a log in a jam, between the two moving trains ... when the freight had passed, he rose and walked.  He took a cab to the Artwork Studios.

All in tatters, he hurried to his room and put on another suit.  He appeared at supper by the side of the Master.  He narrated what had happened, amid laughter and joking.  When Spalton wanted to send for his old, frail, white-headed father, the elder Spalton, who was the community doctor, Jack waved the idea aside.

“Oh, no, Master!” (Master he called Spalton, and never the familiar, more democratic John) “Oh, no, I’m all right."...

The next morning Jack did not show up for breakfast.

At ten o’clock Spalton, solicitous, went up to his room....

He shouted for help.  He had found his disciple there, huge and dead, like a stranded sea-thing.

* * * * *

In Gabby Jack’s will ... for they found one, together with a last word and testament for humanity,—­it was asked of Spalton that he should conduct the funeral from the Chapel ... and read the funeral oration, written by the deceased himself ... and add, if the Master felt moved, a few words thereto of his own ... if he considered that so mean a disciple deserved it.