ave I not told you you are not?" he said, frowning.

"You have; but you have not proved it," said Hector.

"I am surprised that you should cling to a foolish delusion. You are
only preparing trouble for yourself. If my word is not sufficient--"

"You are an interested party. This story, if true, gives you my
property."

"At any rate, you may take your father's--I mean my brother's--word for
it."

"If he had told me so, I would believe it," said Hector.

"You have it in black and white, in the paper I showed you. What more do
you want?"

"I want to be sure that that document is genuine. However, I won't argue
the question now. I have only been giving you my reasons for keeping the
name I have always regarded as mine."

Allan Roscoe thought it best to drop the subject; but the boy's
persistency disturbed him.

CHAPTER VI. SMITH INSTITUTE.

Socrates Smith, A. M., was not always known by the philosophic name
by which he challenged the world's respect as a man of learning and
distinguished attainments. When a boy in his teens, and an academy
student, he was known simply as Shadrach Smith. His boy companions used
to address him familiarly as Shad. It was clear that no pedagogue could
retain the respect of his pupils who might readily be metamorphosed into
Old Shad. By the advice of a brother preacher, he dropped the plebeian
name, and bloomed forth as Socrates Smith, A. M.

I may say, in confidence, that no one knew from what college Mr. Smith
obtained the degree of Master of Arts. He always evaded the question
himself, saying that it was given him by a Western university causa
honoris.

It might be, or it might not. At any rate, he was allowed to wear
the title, since no one thought it worth while to make the necessary
examination into its genuineness. Nor, again, had anyone been able to
discover at what college the distinguished Socrates had studied. In
truth, he had never even entered college, but he had offered himself as
a candidate for admission to a college in Ohio, and been rejected. This
did not, however, prevent his getting up a school, and advertising to
instruct others in the branches of learning of which his own knowledge
was so incomplete.

He was able to hide his own deficiencies, having generally in his employ
some college graduate, whose poverty compelled him to accept the scanty
wages which Socrates doled out to him. These young men were generally
poor scholars in more than one sen