"He ought to have told the Trojans that they couldn't hurt any part of
him except his heel, and let them have a shot at that," he argued;
"King Arthur and all the rest of them with their magic swords, it
wasn't playing the game. There's no pluck in fighting if you know
you're bound to win. Beastly cads, I call them all."

I won no prize that year. Oddly enough, Dan did, for arithmetic; the
only subject studied in the Lower Fourth that interested him. He
liked to see things coming right, he explained.

My father shut himself up with me for half an hour and examined me
himself.

"It's very curious, Paul," he said, "you seem to know a good deal."

"They asked me all the things I didn't know. They seemed to do it on
purpose," I blurted out, and laid my head upon my arm. My father
crossed the room and sat down beside me.

"Spud!" he said--it was a long time since he had called me by that
childish nickname--"perhaps you are going to be with me, one of the
unlucky ones."

"Are you unlucky?" I asked.

"Invariably," answered my father, rumpling his hair. "I don't know
why. I try hard--I do the right thing, but it turns out wrong. It
always does."

"But I thought Mr. Hasluck was bringing us such good fortune," I said,