"Gregory, you are impossible," laughed Stanton heartily, "but we're all
rather fond of you ... and we want you to behave, and try to graduate.
Though we can't tell just what you might do in after-life ... whether
you'll turn out a credit to the School or not."

"Professor Stanton, I have a favour to ask of you before I go," I asked,
standing.

"Yes?" and he raised his eyebrows.

"I want to know if I can have that room alone, over the platform, in
Recitation Hall."

"You'll have to ask Professor Dunn about that ... he has charge of
room-transfers ... but why can't you room as the other students do?... I
don't know whether it is good for you, to let you live by yourself ...
you're already different enough from the other boys ... what you need is
more human companionship, Gregory, not less."

"I want to do a lot of writing. I want to be alone to think. I plan to
read Westcott and Hort's Greek New Testament all through, again, this
winter." ... This was a sop to his religious sentiment. I related how I
had first read the New Testament in the Greek, while on a cattle-boat,
in the China Seas....

"Gregory, you're quite mad ... but you're a smooth one, too!" his eyes
gleamed, amused, behind his glasses....

"And I want to write a lot of poems drawn from the parables of the New
Testament"--though, not till that minute had such an idea entered my