As for Pemberton's own estimate of his pupil, it was a good while before
he got the point of view, so little had he been prepared for it by the
smug young barbarians to whom the tradition of tutorship, as hitherto
revealed to him, had been adjusted. Morgan was scrappy and surprising,
deficient in many properties supposed common to the genus and abounding
in others that were the portion only of the supernaturally clever. One
day his friend made a great stride: it cleared up the question to
perceive that Morgan _was_ supernaturally clever and that, though the
formula was temporarily meagre, this would be the only assumption on
which one could successfully deal with him. He had the general quality
of a child for whom life had not been simplified by school, a kind of
homebred sensibility which might have been as bad for himself but was
charming for others, and a whole range of refinement and
perception--little musical vibrations as taking as picked-up
airs--begotten by wandering about Europe at the tail of his migratory
tribe. This might not have been an education to recommend in advance,
but its results with so special a subject were as appreciable as the
marks on a piece of fine porcelain. There was at the same time in him a
small strain of stoicism, doubtless the fruit of having had to begin
early to bear pain, which counted for pluck and made it of less
consequence that he might have been thought at school rather a polyglot
little beast. Pemberton indeed quickly found himself rejoicing that
school was out of the question: in any million of boys it was probably
good for all but one, and Morgan was that millionth. It would have made
him comparative and superior--it might have made him really require
kicking. Pemberton would try to be school himself--a bigger seminary
than five hundred grazing donkeys, so that, winning no prizes, the boy
would remain unconscious and irresponsible and amusing--amusing, because,
though life was already intense in his childish nature, freshness still
made there a strong draught for jokes. It turned out that even in the