"No matter if it is. I believe in the conservation of all latent energy. Brenton's is all latent, and I count on you to do the conserving. I've been asking questions lately. From all accounts, you are the only man in college but myself who has taken the pains to get inside the poor beggar's shell."
"Hm. Well?" Opdyke's eyes were on the smoke in front of him; but, to the older man, it was plain that he was listening intently.
"Now you've got to go to work to get him out of his shell, so that people can see what he is like and, more than that, so that he can find out what people really are. He has no more knowledge of humanity than a six-months puppy; in fact, he hasn't so much. And—he's—got—to—learn." The words came weightily.
"What's the good?" Opdyke asked lazily.
The reply was unexpected, even to him who knew Professor Mansfield's downright ways.
"To teach him what an ass he really is. Till he finds that out—till you all find it out about yourselves, there's not much hope for any of you."
Opdyke flushed.
"Thanks," he said a little shortly.
Bending across the table, the old professor laid a friendly hand upon his arm.
"Don't be huffy, Reed. A few of you take in the knowledge with your mother's milk. That's what saves society, by marking it off into separate classes, what makes the difference between your father's son, and the strenuous scion of fifty ministerial Wheelers. But, because you've already got it, you owe all the more to the poor chaps who haven't."