t the
traditions of old Blaines College, I say! Old Blaines College is not
asking for alms. Old Blaines College is not a whining beggar, whatever
those Yankee colleges may be. I say, gentlemen, it's beneath the dignity
of old Blaines College for its president to go about Noo York bowing and
scraping and passing the hat to Rockyfeller, and such-like boocaneers."

To West's unfeigned surprise, this view of the matter met with solid
backing. Reminiscences of the "tainted money" controversy appeared in
the trustees' talk. "Subsidized education" was heard more than once. One
spoke bitterly of Oil Colleges. No resolution was introduced, James E.
Winter having inadvertently come unprepared, but the majority opinion
was clearly that old Blaines College (founded 1894) should draw in her
traditional skirts from the yellow flood then pouring over the country,
and remain, small it may be, but superbly incorruptible.

For once, West left his trustees thoroughly disgusted and out of humor.

"Why, _why_ are we doomed to this invincible hostility to a new idea?"
he cried, in the bitterness of his soul. "Here is the spirit of progress
not merely beckoning to us, but fairly springing into our laps, and
because it speaks in accents that were unfamiliar to the slave
patriarchy of a hundred years ago, we drag it outside the city and
crucify it. I tell you these old Bourbons whom we call leaders are
millstones around our necks, and we can never move an inch until we've
laid the last one of them under the sod."

Sharlee Weyland, to whom he repeated this thought, though she was all
sympathy with his difficulties, did not nevertheless think that this was
quite fair. "Look," she said, "at the tremendous progress we've made in
the last ten years."

"Yes," he flashed back at her, "and who can say that a state like
Massachusetts, with the same incomparable opportunities, wouldn't have
made ten times as much!"

But he was the best-natured man alive, and his vexation soon faded. In a
week, he was once more busy planning out ways and means. He sought funds
in the metropolis no more, and the famous financier spared him the
mortification of having to refuse a donation by considerately not
offering one. But he continued to make addresses in the State, and in
the city he was in frequent demand. However, the endowment fund remained
obstinately immovable. By February there had been no additions, unless
we can count five hundred dollars promised by das