"Pshaw! That's just grandpa's chatter! The old man rails at me
day and night about you until it's a mortal wonder he doesn't
drive me to the dogs outright. I'd like to see another fellow
that would put up with it for a week. Captain Morrison told him,
you know, that I hadn't done a peg of study for a year, and it
brought on a scene that almost shook the roof. Now he swears I'm
to go to the university next fall or hang."

"Well, I'd go, by all means."

"What under heaven could I do there? All those confounded
languages Morrison poured into my head haven't left so much as a
single letter of the alphabet. Ad nauseam is all I learned of
Latin. I tell you I'd rather be a storekeeper any time than a
scholar--books make me sick all over--and, when it comes to that,
I don't believe I know much more to-day than you do."

A smile crossed Christopher's face, leaving it very grim. The
words recalled to him his own earlier ambition--that of the
gentlemanly scholar of the old order--and there flickered before
his eyes the visionary library, suffused with firelight, and the
translation of the "Iliad" he had meant to finish.

"I always told you it wasn't worth anything," he said roughly.
"She'd love you any better if you could spurt Greek?"

Will broke into a pleased laugh, his mind dwelling upon the fancy
the other had conjured up so skilfully.