occupation merely as a stepping-stone upon his ascending journey. If
he be conscientious, he instils, together with his information that all
Gaul is divided and that a parasang is not something to eat, also the
belief that the game sought is worth the candle, and that hard study is
not wasted time. Such a teacher found young Harlson; such a teacher
was Professor--they always call the high-school principal "Professor"
in small towns--Morgan, and he took an interest in the youth, not the
interest of the typical great educator, but rather that of an older and
aspiring jockey aiding a younger one with his first mount, or of a
railroad engineer who tells his fireman of a locomotive's moods and
teaches him the tricks of management. They might help each other some
day. Well equipped, too, was Morgan for the service. No shallow
graduate of some mere diploma-manufactory, but one who believed in the
perfection of means for an end,--an advocate of thoroughness.

So it came that for four years Grant Harlson studied
feverishly,--selfishly might be almost the word,--such was the impulse
that moved him under Morgan's teaching, and so purely objective all his
reasoning. In his vacations he hunted, fished, and developed the more
thews and sinews, and acquired new fancies as to whether an Irish
setter or a Gordon made the better dog with woodcock, and upon various
other healthful topics, but his main purpose never varied. In his
classes there were fair girls, and in high-schools there is much callow
gallantry; but at this period of his life he would have none of it. He
was not timid, but he was absorbed. Morgan told him one day that he
was ready for college.