“I’ll get off all right. It won’t be such a job either—now that some one else will take Mr. Dean’s place.”
That remark, more than Henderson’s frankness, made David wince. That Wallace could imagine any advantages accruing to himself from Mr. Dean’s misfortune was most unpleasant.
Upon the impulse David spoke. “You know perfectly well there isn’t a fairer-minded man than Mr. Dean in this school.”
Wallace flushed. “I wasn’t trying to run him down, even if he always has had it in for me.”
David made no response; the disclaimer was as unkind as the innuendo.
Two days later Mr. Dean returned to the school. He sent for David at noon; David, entering his study, found him sitting at the desk with a pen in his hand.
“I’m trying to learn to write,” Mr. Dean explained as he laid down the pen and held out his hand. “Take up the page, David, and tell me whether I overrun it or crowd lines and words together. What is my tendency?”
“It’s all perfectly clear, only you waste a good deal of paper; you space your lines far apart and get only a few words to a line,” David said.
“That’s erring on the safe side, anyway. What’s going to bother me most will be to know when the ink in my fountain pen runs dry. It would be exasperating to write page after page and then learn that I hadn’t made a mark!” Mr. Dean laughed cheerfully. “Well, the trip to Boston didn’t result in any encouragement; I knew it wouldn’t. I’ve been talking with the rector this morning, and I’m to go ahead with my work here. The fact is, I’ve been teaching Cæsar, Vergil, and Horace for so many years that I know them almost by heart—sufficiently well to be able to follow the translation if some one reads the Latin passage to me first. I wanted to ask you if you would pilot me to the classroom and home again—for a few days at least; I expect in a short time to be able to get about all alone.”