stinction?"

"I don't give a snap for niceties of distinction, Professor; I don't
know them, in fact. They might have been hammered into my head once, but
they were jolted out by bucking horses. Sometimes we forced them out. We
didn't want to be hampered. I knew a rancher, an Oxford man, who
wilfully clawed the polish off his tongue. He wanted to live down among
men, he said, and the rougher the better. One day I saw him get down off
his horse to kick a book that some one had dropped in the trail."

"I don't blame him for kicking a book that he might find out there,"
said the Professor.

"You don't? A scholar lost an AEschylus on the prairie, and some one
might have kicked it."

"Ha! I draw you on apace. We'll discuss the ancient goat-song next."

"No, I'd rather talk about sheep and calves. I know more about them. I
never look at a learned man that I don't fancy him weary of his burden.
Think of a professor's moldy pack, dead languages, dried thought----"

"Hold on, my dear friend. I was a professor, and I had no such pack.
Like the modern peddler, I carried the wants of to-day. But, after all,
I agree with you in the main. I know that the average doctor of learning
is not able to see virtue in the new. To him old platitude is of more
value than new vigor. And with one more cup I could----"

"No more."

"Not in the interest of clear elucidation?"

"Not in any interest that you can fish up. I don't want you to go home
drunk."

"Drunk! Why, my dear boy, I hadn't thought of such a thing; it hasn't
entered my head. You mistake me, and I am here to refute it. A man needs
something beyond his needs; there are times when we look for something
aside from our own natural forces; there are wants which nature was ages
in supplying. Look at tobacco. The Greeks missed it as they sat deep in
the discussion of their philosophy. They did not know what it was they
were missing, but they knew it was something and I know it was tobacco.
But be that as it may. You have said that I shall have no more, and I
bow." He twisted his beard and seemed to force into himself the spirit
of resignation. They heard a tramping on the veranda. A voice called
Mitchell. He went to the door and opened it, told some one to come in,
and then stepped out. There came a mumbling, and then a profane
exclamation. Mitchell stepped back into the room and slammed the door.
He sat down and leaned over with his arms upon his knees. The Professor
looked at