our deck by way of a present."

Leigh found the conversation which this reminiscence suggested so full
of interest, that he made the complete circuit of the line to pursue it
at such intervals as his new acquaintance could spare from his duties.
Then, as the steaming rain had begun to fall heavily, he returned to
the college. Upon a mental review of his trip, he was inclined to
doubt that he would hear from Emmet, but in so doing he forgot to
reckon with one of the most powerful of human motives, curiosity. He
also failed to consider that his position as a professor at St.
George's Hall would give his advances peculiar importance. His only
fear was that the captain might not report the message correctly, and
he wished he had been able to write a note. A remembrance of the man's
geniality reassured him, and he reflected that such men were the most
approachable and companionable in the world, always ready for a new
acquaintance, and imbued with a certain fundamental humanity which is
too often winnowed out from more artificial or more cultivated natures.

He went to his work that evening without much thought of the probable
outcome of his morning's effort. Like most college professors, he had
a number of unfinished problems on hand, any one of which might require
years for its solution. The scholar's work, like the housekeeper's, is
never done, and like the housekeeper, too, he can cover up his
postponements and neglect for a measurable time without censure. He
can fail to set the house of his mind in order; he can sweep the dust
of unfinished investigation into obscure nooks and corners; he can make
fair the outside of the cup and the platter for cursory inspection.
Herein lies his peculiar temptation. The public is prone to take his
scientific spirit for granted, and is a long time in opening its eyes.
Meanwhile he lives a life of delightful leisure, teaching as many hours
a week as a business man labours in a day. Not one man in a hundred is
proof against the seduction of those idle hours, during which
literature and art and a cultivated society plead for some share of his
attention and filch away his will. And, after all, why not? he begins
to ask himself. In a commercial age and a country that thinks upon the
surface, his profession receives no adequate recognition. Life is
short; he had better reap the reward of his laborious and expensive
preparation by enjoying those diversions which he of all men i