Winning His "W" Part 19

"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 a.s.sure 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 cla.s.ses 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-b.u.t.ton 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 cla.s.ses 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 a.s.sure 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 Homeridae. 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.sic 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.

CHAPTER XV

A REVERSED DECISION

In the days that immediately followed, Will Phelps found himself so busy that there was but little time afforded for the pleasures of comradeship or for the lighter side of college life. Acting upon the one good point in the advice of his professor of Greek he secured a tutor, and though he found but little pleasure in the study, still he gave himself to it so unreservedly that when a few weeks had elapsed, a new light, dim somewhat, it was true, and by no means altogether cheering, began to appear upon his pathway. It was so much more difficult to catch up than to keep up, and perhaps this was the very lesson which Will Phelps needed most of all to learn. There was not much time given to recreation now, and Will acting upon the advice of the instructor in athletics had abandoned his projected practice in running though his determination to try to secure a place on the track team was as strong as ever. But he had subst.i.tuted for the running a line of work in the gymnasium which tended to develop the muscles in his legs and keep his general bodily condition in good form. He was informed that success in running was based upon nerve force as well as upon muscular power, and that "early to bed" was almost as much a requisite here as it was in making a man "healthy and wealthy and wise." This condition however he found it exceedingly difficult to fulfill, for the additional work he was doing in Greek made a severe draught upon his time as well as upon his energies.

"I hate the stuff!" he declared one night to his room-mate after he had spent several hours in an almost vain effort to fasten certain rules in his mind. "You don't catch me taking it after this year."

"You don't have to look ahead, Will," suggested Foster kindly.

"No, the look behind is bad enough. If I had worked in the early part of the high-school course as I ought to I'd not be having all this bother now."

"And if you work now you won't have the trouble ahead," laughed Foster.

"I suppose that's the way of it."

"Of course it is. A fellow reaps what he sows."

"I'd rather _rip_ what I sewed," said Will ruefully. "Do you know, Foster, sometimes I think the game isn't worth the candle. I'd give it all up, even if I had to leave college, if it wasn't for my father."

"You wouldn't do anything of the kind and you know it, Will Phelps!

You're not the fellow to run when the pinch comes."

"I'd like to, though," said Will thoughtfully. "My fit in Greek was so poor I'll never get much of the good from studying it."

"You'll be all the stronger for not giving up, anyway."

"That's the only thing that keeps me at it. I'm so busy I don't even have time to be homesick."

"Well, that's one good thing."

"Perhaps it is, but if I flunk out at the mid-year's--"

"You won't if you only keep it up and keep at it."