never we had a
public exhibition, George was our show-card. The rapidity with which he
would fill the blackboard, in solving difficult problems in quadratics,
was almost bewildering. It was not every teacher even that could follow
him in his quick but exact evolutions of complex algebraical formulae. In
Greek and Latin he hardly attained to mediocrity, being always behind
his class, while in mathematics he was superior, not only to every boy
in school, but to any boy of the same age that I have ever had in any
school. But this boy received from the Professor only a second or
third-rate rank for mathematical indications, while highly praised for
linguistics, in which he was decidedly inferior.

The fact was, I saw that the gentleman was trying to read _me_, as well
as the more youthful part of his audience; and so, in questioning him
about this boy, I was malicious enough to be very minute and specific in
my inquiries about any indications of a talent for language, while the
questions about mathematics were propounded just like those about half a
dozen other points; that is, with no special stress or emphasis, but
just enough to draw from the Professor a clear and distinct expression
of opinion.

_Boy No. 5_ was perhaps the most critical case of all, yet the one most
difficult to describe. He was good, and about equally good, in all his
studies. He stood head in almost every class. He was so uniformly good
that his character became monotonous, and would have been insipid, but
for the manly vigor that marked all his performances. His moral were
like his mental traits. He was indeed our model boy. In two years he had
not had one demerit mark. He was on all sides rounded and
complete--_totus teres atque rotundus_. The uniformity of his goodness
was sometimes a source of anxiety to me. There was danger of his growing
up with a self-satisfied, pharisaical spirit.

Thus far, however, I have not named the feature which I regarded as the
critical one, and which had led me to select him as one of the subjects
for examination. Model boys are to be found in all schools. But this boy
had a power of reticence which was to me a continual study, and it was
this feature in his character that I wanted to bring out in the
examination. He was not a sneak. There was nothing sly about him. His
conduct was open and aboveboard. What he did was patent to all. But what
he thought, or how he felt, no one knew. Not Grant himself could more
perf