ill asked the
question he regretted it, but the temptation was too strong to be
resisted.

"I cannot say exactly," said the professor in some confusion, "but my
weight has very materially increased. If I recall aright, the last time
when I was weighed I had added two and three-quarters pounds. It is
true it was in the winter and doubtless heavier clothing may have
slightly modified the result. But still I can safely affirm that I am
much heavier than I was at the time when I joined the Winthrop faculty."

"Do you find that you feel better now that you are more corpulent? I
have heard it said that addition to the body is subtraction from the
brain. Do you think that is so, professor?"

"It is true, most assuredly. All classifical literature confirms the
statement you have just made."

"Then you don't believe in athletics, do you, professor?"

"Assuredly not. Most assuredly not."

"But didn't the ancient Greeks have their racecourses? Didn't they
believe in running and jumping and boxing and I don't know what all?"

"That is true, but the times were very different then. They had not in
the least lost the sense of the poetry of life. They were not so crassly
or grossly materialistic as the present age undoubtedly is. Every grove
was peopled with divinities, every mountain was the abode of the unseen.
Why, Mr. Phelps, the Greeks were the only people that ever lived that
looked upon mountains as anything but blots or defects."

"Is that so?" inquired Will in surprise.

"It certainly is. It is true that since the days of the poet Gray there
has been a tendency among English-speaking people to affect a veneration
for the mountains, but it is, I fawncy, only a faint echo of the old
Greek conception and is a purely superficial product of an extremely
superficial age and people."

"Didn't the Hebrews have a feeling like the one you tell of? Isn't
there a psalm that begins 'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from
whence cometh my help'? Didn't they describe the high hills that were
round about Jerusalem?"

"Ah, yes. That is true," assented the professor in some confusion. "I
had not thought of it in that light precisely. You have given me a new
insight to-day, Mr. Phelps. I shall at once go over my data again. I am
grateful to you for acceding to my request to remain to-day."

"But, professor," persisted Will, "what about my work in Greek? I've had
a tutor ever since you told me to get one and I've been working