nce.
Professor Dawson was a young man to be so celebrated, being only some
fifteen years older than Tom himself. He was, of course, a Full
Professor--the only Full Professor in Freshman English.

Next in rank to him in the Department was Mr. Brainerd, a gentleman who
was nearly as much Professor Dawson's senior as Dawson was Tom's. Mr.
Brainerd was, however, only an Assistant Professor, and it was now
understood by all that he would never be anything higher. Fifteen years
ago when he produced his chef-d'oeuvre on Smollett his hopes had run
high. At that time his fate hung in the balance. He could no longer be
regarded as one of the "younger men," and his status was to be
determined once and for all. The crowning glory of a Full Professorship
could only go to one who had made some significant contribution to his
subject. Would _Tobias Smollett_ be that? Into it had gone all that
Brainerd could give, and it had, after a brief and generally indifferent
appearance in the reviews, dropped out of sight. Then it was recognized
that good old Burt Brainerd would have to putter through life as best he
could. Mr. Brainerd felt no particular bitterness about it, certainly no
bitterness towards the College. He had been disappointed in his
publisher. He should have gone to Beeson, Pancoast with it; instead of
to Trull. Trull hadn't pushed it at all: they merely announced it with a
string of books on very dull subjects. Then, too, they had used a cursed
small type. He had protested against this and had been told that a
larger type would have made it much more expensive, would probably have
necessitated doing the work in two volumes. They had had the calm
assurance to talk to him of expense when he had consented to waive his
royalties on the first five hundred copies!--an exemption, by the way,
which they had not yet succeeded in working off. Well, that had been his
main chance, and he now watched the rise of younger men with equanimity.
And it must be confessed that he got a certain amount of cold comfort
from the remembrance that on three several occasions good things had
come to him from out of the west, and that he need not have remained
"assistant" had he not elected to do so.

Were it not for his wife, he might have become content. The library was
a strong one, particularly in his field, and what more delightful end
for a scholar than to browse at will in his period and write essays for
the literary magazines? But Mrs. Brainerd