Chapter 14

THE ADVICE FOLLOWED

For a time after the departure of Wagner, Will Phelps sat thinking over the stirring words of his visitor. His feeling of positive discouragement, with the natural rebound of his impulsive temperament, had in a measure given place to one of confidence and even of elation. To be recognized by the great captain was an honor of itself, but to receive a personal visit from him and a warm invitation to try for a place on the track team was a distinction for which he never had even dared to dream. Even his other pressing problem--his work in Greek--appeared slightly more rosy-hued now, and a sudden determination seized upon him to do as Wagner had suggested and see Splinter that very night.

Accordingly, soon after dinner--the meal at his fraternity house which he had dreaded in view of the semi-defeat of the afternoon--he started toward the home of his professor of Greek, resolved to talk over the entire situation with him and strive to learn exactly where he stood and what his prospects were likely to be.

As he approached the walk that led from the street back to the professor's home he came face to face with Mott and Peter John Schenck. His surprise at meeting them was not greater than that he should find them together, and the fact to his mind boded little good for his classmate.

"Going in to see Splinter?" inquired Mott.

"Yes."

"Better not."

"Why?"

"Boot-licking isn't in very high favor here at Winthrop."

Will was glad that the darkness concealed the flush which he knew crept over his face, but his voice was steady as he replied: "That's all right, Mott. I'm not going in to see Splinter because I want to, you may let your heart rest easy as to that."

"How long are you going to be in the house?"

"I'm afraid that will not be for me to decide. If I have my way, it won't be long."

"Well, good luck to you!" called Mott as he and his companion passed on down the street.

Will rang the bell and was at once ushered into the professor's study. The professor himself was seated at his desk with a green shade over his eyes, and evidently had been at work upon some papers. Will even fancied that he could recognize the one which he himself had handed in the preceding day and his embarrassment increased.

"Ah, good evening, Mr. Phelps," said the professor extending his hand and partly rising from his seat as he greeted his caller. "Will you be seated?"

"Good evening, professor," replied the freshman as he took the chair indicated.

An awkward silence followed which Will somehow found it difficult to break in upon. He heartily wished that he had not come, for the reality was much worse than he had thought. Even the very lines and furrows in the professor's face seemed to him to be forbidding, and he felt that it would be well-nigh impossible for him to explain the purpose of his coming.

"Was there something concerning which you desired to consult me?" inquired the professor. The voice seemed to be as impersonal as that of a phonograph, and every letter in every word was so distinctly pronounced that the effect was almost electric.

"Yes, sir."

Again silence intervened. The professor's lips moved slightly as if, as Will afterwards declared, "he was tasting his Greek roots," but he did not speak. The freshman shifted his position, toyed with his gloves and at last, unable to endure the suspense any longer, he broke forth:

"Yes, sir, there is, professor. I have not been doing very well in my Greek."

"Ah. Let me see." The professor opened a drawer and drew forth a little notebook which he consulted for a brief time. "Yes, you are correct. Your work is below the required standard."

"But what am I to do about it?" demanded Will.

"Yes, ah, yes. I fancy it will be necessary for you to spend a somewhat longer period of study in preparation."

"But _how_ shall I study?"

"Yes. Yes. Ah, yes. Exactly so. So you refer to the method to be employed in the preparation for the classroom?"

"Yes, sir. That's it. I'm willing enough to work, but I don't know how."

"Well, I should say that the proper method would be to employ a tutor for a time. There are several very excellent young gentlemen who are accustomed to give their services to deserving youth--"

"I don't want them to give it. I'll pay for it!" interrupted Will.

"I was about to say that these young gentlemen give their services for a consideration--a proper consideration--of course."

The professor's thin lips seemed to be reluctant to permit the escape of a word, so firmly were they pressed together during the intervals between his slowly spoken words. His slight figure, "too thin to cast a shadow," in the vigorous terms of the young freshman, was irritating in the extreme, and if Will had followed his own inclinations he would at once have ended the interview.

"I knew I could get a tutor, and if it is necessary I'll do it. But I did not know but that you might be able to make a suggestion to me. I know I'm not very well prepared, but if you'll give me a show and tell me a little how to go to work at the detestable stuff I'll do my best. I don't like it. I wouldn't keep at it a minute if my father was not so anxious for me to keep it up and I'd do anything in the world for him. That's why I'm in the Greek class."

"You are, I fancy (fawncy was the word in the dialect of the professor) doing better work in the various other departments than in your Greek?"

"Yes, sir. I think so."

"You are not positive?"

"Yes, sir. I know I'm doing fairly well in my Latin and mathematics. Why the recitation in Latin never seems to be more than a quarter of an hour, while the Greek seems as if it would never come to an end. I think Professor Baxter is the best teacher I ever saw and he doesn't make the Latin seem a bit like a dead language. But the Greek seems as if it had never been alive."

"Ahem-m!" piped up the thin voice of the professor of Greek.

Will Phelps, however, was in earnest now and his embarrassment was all forgotten. He was expressing his own inward feelings and without any intention or even thought of how the words would sound he was describing his own attitude of mind. He certainly had no thought of how his words would be received.

"Ahem-m!" repeated the professor shrilly and shifting a trifle uneasily in his seat. "I fawncy that a student always does better work in a subject which he enjoys."

"Yes, but doesn't he enjoy what he can do better work in too? Now I don't know how to study Greek, can't seem to make anything out of it. As you told me one day in the class 'I make Greek of it all.' Perhaps not exactly the kind of Greek you want, though," Will added with a smile.

"Ah, yes. I fawncy a trifle more of work would aid you."

"Of course! I know it would! And that's what I'm willing to do and what I want to do, professor. But the trouble is I don't know just how to work."

"I--I fail to see precisely what you mean."

"Why, I spend time enough but I don't seem to 'get there'--I mean I don't seem to accomplish much. My translation's not much good, and everything is wrong."

"Perhaps you have an innate deficiency--"

"You mean I'm a fool?" Will laughed good-naturedly, and even the professor smiled.

"Ah, no. By no means, Mr. Phelps, quite the contrary to that, I assure you. There are some men who are very brilliant students in certain subjects, but are very indifferent ones in others. For example, I recollect that some twenty years ago--or to be exact nineteen years ago--there was a student in my classes who was very brilliant, very brilliant indeed. His name as I recall it was Wilder. So proficient was he in his Greek that some of the students facetiously called him Socrates, and some still more facetious even termed him Soc. I am sure, Mr. Phelps, you have been in college a sufficient length of time to apprehend the frolicsome nature of some of the students here."

"I certainly have," Will remarked with a smile, recalling his own compulsory collar-button race.

"I fawncied so. Well, this Mr. Wilder to whom I refer was doing remarkable work, truly remarkable work in Greek, but for some cause his standing in mathematics was extremely low, and in other branches he was not a brilliant success."

"What did he do?" inquired Will eager to bring the tedious description to a close, and if possible receive the suggestions for which he had come.

"My recollection is that he finally left college."

"Indeed!" Will endeavored to be duly impressed by the startling fact, but as he recalled the professor's statement that the brilliant Wilder was in college something like twenty years before this time, his brilliancy in being able to complete the course and now be out from the college did not seem to him to indicate any undue precocity on the part of the aforesaid student.

"Yes, it was so. It has been my pleasure to receive an annual letter from him, and I trust you will not think I am unduly immodest when I state that he acknowledges that all his success in life is due to the work he did here in my own classes in Winthrop. My sole motive in referring to it is the desire to aid you."

"You think I may be another Wilder?" inquired Will lightly.

"Not exactly. That was not the thought that was uppermost. But it may serve as an incentive to you."

"What is this Wilder doing now?"

"Ahem-m!" The professor cleared his throat repeatedly before he spoke. "He is engaged in an occupation that brings him into contact with the very best that has been thought and said, and also into contact with some of the brightest and keenest intellects of our nation."

"He must be an editor or a publisher then."

"Not exactly. Not exactly, Mr. Phelps. He is engaged rather in a mercantile way, though with the most scholarly works, I do assure you."

"Is he a book agent?"

"Ahem-m! Ahem-m! That is an expression I seldom use, Mr. Phelps. It has become a somewhat obnoxious term, though originally it was not so, I fawncy. I should hardly care to apply that expression as indicative of Mr. Wilder's present occupation."

"And you think if I try hard I may at last become a book agent too?"

"You have mistaken my implication," said the professor scowling slightly as he spoke. "I was striving solely to provide an incentive for you. You may recall what Homer, or at least he whom in our current phraseology we are accustomed to call Homer--I shall not now enter into the merits of that question of the Homeridæ. As I was about to remark, however, you doubtless may recollect what Homer in the fifth book of his Iliad, line forty-ninth, I think it is, has to say."

"I'm afraid I don't recall it. You see, professor, I had only three books of the Iliad before I came to Winthrop."

"Surely! Surely! Strange that I should have forgotten that. It is a pleasure you have in store then, Mr. Phelps."

"Can you give me any suggestions how to do better work, professor?" inquired Will mildly.

"My advice to you is to secure Mr. Franklin of the present junior class to tutor you for a time."

"Thank you. I'll try to see him to-night," said Will rising and preparing to depart.

"That might be wise. I trust you will call upon me again, Mr. Phelps. I have enjoyed this call exceedingly. You will not misunderstand me if I say I had slight knowledge of your classic tastes before, and I am sure that I congratulate you heartily, Mr. Phelps. I do indeed."

"Thank you," replied Will respectfully, and he then departed from the house. He was divided between a feeling of keen disappointment and a desire to laugh as he walked up the street toward his dormitory. And this was the man who was to stimulate his intellectual processes! In his thoughts he contrasted him with his professor in Latin, and the man as well as the language sank lower and lower in his estimation. And yet he must meet it. The problem might be solved but could not be evaded. He would see Franklin at once, he decided.