That evening the judge glanced across the table with great satisfaction at Sandy, who was apparently buried in his Vergil. The boy, after all, was a student; he was
justifying the money and time that had been spent upon him; he was proving a credit to his benefactor's judgment and to his knowledge of human nature.
"Would ye mind telling me a word that rhymes with lance?" broke in Sandy after an hour of absorbed concentration.
"Pants," suggested the judge. But he woke up in the night to wonder again what part of Vergil Sandy had been studying.
"How about the scholarship?" he asked the next day of Mr. Moseley, the principal of the academy.
Mr. Moseley pursed his lips and considered the matter ponderously. He regarded it as ill befitting an instructor of youth to dispose of any subject in words of less than three syllables.
"Your proteacute;geacute;, Judge Hollis, is an ambiguous proposition. He possesses invention and originality, but he is sadly lacking in sustained concentration."
"But if he studies," persisted the judge, "you think he may win it?"
Mr. Moseley wrinkled his brows and looked as if he were solving a problem in Euclid. "Probably," he admitted; "but there is a most insidious enemy with which he has to contend."
"An enemy?" repeated the judge, anxiously.