-seat the other two were racing
through volumes one and two of Carlyle's French Revolution. The room was
a perfect babel of sound. But the big man sat and smoked his pipe, his
honor safe and the morrow secure. In later years, whatever might happen
across the sea would find this fellow fully prepared, a wise,
intelligent judge of the world, with a college education.

"This reminds me," he said, "of last summer--when I did Europe in three
weeks with Dad."

The main idea in all courses was to do what you had to but no more. One
day an English prof called upon me to define the difference between a
novel and a book of science.

"About the same difference," I replied, "as between an artist's painting
and a mathematical drawing."

"Bootlick, bootlick," I heard in murmurs all over the hall. I had
answered better than I had to. Hence I had licked the professor's boots.
I did not offend in this way again.

* * * * *

But early in my sophomore year, when the novelty had worn away, I began
to do some thinking. Was there nothing else here? My mother and I had
had talks at home, and she had told me plainly that unless I sent home
better reports I could not finish my four years' course. And after all,
she wasn't a fool, there was something in that idea of hers--that here
in this quiet old town, so remote from the harbor and business, a fellow
ought to be getting "fine" things, things that would help him all his
life.

"But look what I've got!" I told myself. "When I came here what was I? A
little damn prig! And look at me now!"

"All right, look ahead. I'm toughened up, I've had some good things
knocked into me and a lot of fool things knocked out of me. But that's
just it. Are all the fine things fool things? Don't I still want to
write? Sure I do. Well, what am I going to write about? What do I know
of the big things of life? I was always hunting for what was great. I'm
never hunting for it now, and unless I get something mighty quick my
father will make me go into his business. What am I going to do with my
life?"

At first I honestly tried to "pole," to find whether, after all, I
couldn't break through the hard dry crust of books and lectures down
into what I called "the real stuff." But the deeper I dug the drier it
grew. Vaguely I felt that here was crust and only crust, and that for
some reason or other it was meant that this should be so, because in the
fresh bubbling springs and the