his summer. My ideal is no longer a very
large college--at least not necessarily large--but a college of the very
highest standards. A distinguished faculty of recognized authorities in
their several lines; an earnest student body, large if you can get them,
but always made of picked men admitted on the strictest terms; degrees
recognized all over the country as an unvarying badge of the highest
scholarship--these are what I shall strive for. My ultimate ambition,"
said Charles Gardiner West, dreamily, "is to make of Blaines College an
institution like the University of Paris."

He sprang up presently with great contrition, part real, part mock, over
having absorbed so much of the honest tax-payer's property, the
Departmental time. No, he could not be induced to appropriate a moment
more; he was going to run on up the street and call on Colonel Cowles.

"How is the old gentleman, anyway?"

"His spirits," said Sharlee, "were never better, and he is working like
a horse. But I'm afraid the dear is beginning to feel his years a
little."

"He's nearly seventy, you know. By the bye, what ever became of that
young helper you and I unloaded on him last year--the queer little man
with the queer little name?"

Sharlee saw that President West had entirely forgotten their
conversation six months before, when he had promised to protect this
same young helper from Colonel Cowles and the _Post_ directors. She
smiled indulgently at this evidence of the absent-mindedness of the
great.

"Became of him! Why, you're going to make him regular assistant editor
at your directors' meeting next month."

"Are we, though! I had it in the back of my head that he was fired early
in the summer."

"Well, you see, when he saw the axe descending, he pulled off a little
revolution all by himself and all of a sudden learned to write. Make the
Colonel tell you about it."

"I'm not surprised," said West. "I told you last winter, you know, that
I believed in that boy. Great heavens! It's glorious to be back in this
old town again!"

He went down the broad steps of the Capitol, and out the winding white
walkway through the park. Nearly everybody he met stopped him with a
friendly greeting and a welcome home. He walked the shady path with his
light stick swinging, his eyes seeing, not an arch of tangible trees,
but the shining vista which dreamers call the Future.... He stood upon a
platform, fronting a vast white meadow of upturned faces. He wa