"we do not carry a big force of men in any one department, and each

of those men has to fill his place and slop some over the sides.
We do not pretend or attempt to teach here. If you want to be a
lumberman, you must learn the lumber business more directly than
through the windows of a bookkeeper's office. Go into the woods.
Learn a few first principles. Find out the difference between
Norway and white pine, anyway."

Daly, being what is termed a self-made man, entertained a prejudice
against youths of the leisure class. He did not believe in their
earnestness of purpose, their capacity for knowledge, nor their
perseverance in anything. That a man of twenty-six should be
looking for his first situation was incomprehensible to him. He
made no effort to conceal his prejudice, because the class to which
the young man had belonged enjoyed his hearty contempt.

The truth is, he had taken Thorpe's ignorance a little too much
for granted. Before leaving his home, and while the project of
emigration was still in the air, the young fellow had, with the
quiet enthusiasm of men of his habit of mind, applied himself
to the mastering of whatever the books could teach. That is not
much. The literature on lumbering seems to be singularly limited.
Still he knew the trees, and had sketched an outline into which to
paint experience. He said nothing of this to the man before him,
because of that strange streak in his nature which prompted him to
conceal what he felt most strongly; to leave to others the task of
guessing out his attitude; to stand on appearances without attempting
to justify them, no matter how simple the justification might be.
A moment's frank, straightforward talk might have caught Daly's