confessed: 'I have so many that I may say I have none.' Expecting
reproof, I begged him not to think the worse of me for that.

'Quite otherwise,' said he. 'I have never cared to read deliberately in
the book you open to me, my good young man.'

'The book, Herr Professor?'

'Collect your wits. We will call it Shakespeare's book; or Gothe's, in
the minor issues. No, not minor, but a narrower volume. You were about
to give me the answer of a hypocrite. Was it not so?'

I admitted it, feeling that it was easily to have been perceived. He was
elated.

'Good. Then I apprehend that you wait for the shifting of a tide to
carry you on?'

'I try to strengthen my mind.'

'So I hear,' said he dryly.

'Well, as far as your schools of teaching will allow.'

'That is, you read and commit to memory, like other young scholars.
Whereunto? Have you no aim? You have, or I am told you are to have,
fabulous wealth--a dragon's heap. You are one of the main drainpipes of
English gold. What is your object? To spend it?'

'I shall hope to do good with it.'