And to see Jimmy in the seminary itself! How masterfully he kept track of headings, sub-headings and modifying circumstances! How he could scent at a day's distance the things which the professor was going to ask, as well as those he was going to skip! When he said, "Now, old Morton is heavy on this," the seminary digested the subject in all its bearings and ramifications; and when he said, "No use looking that up," they skipped the heading, though pages of syllabi were slighted thereby. When the wandering mind of Pellams slid off the work, it was beautiful to see Jimmy lead it back with a word and a look; when he sent some sleepy Senior to bed with the remark, "You're no more good. Sleep it off and be fresh to-morrow," Jimmy touched the sublime.
The glory of it all was that upper-classmen as well as Freshmen put themselves absolutely under the Sophomore's rule when it was a question of an examination. Thus does the elective system level all ranks and give genius opportunity.
On the night that Boggs dropped in on them, Jimmy and Pellams were cramming alone. Two seniors who were usually in the group had gone somewhere to mix up in a complication over Student-Body treasurer. A Junior seldom out of line was a candidate for the Executive Committee; he had put his head in at the door to say, "Dead sorry, fellows, but can't get in it," and then gone down to Palo Alto to make himself agreeable to a dig girl who had "influence." The popularity of some people waxes strangely the latter part of April. A Freshman who was taking the course when he shouldn't and who stood on the dizzy brink of flunking it, had gone off with a Junior who wanted to stand well with certain Freshmen of importance, and who had overjoyed the youngster with an invitation to Mayfield, an event which made flunking clear out of the University a thing of small moment to the Freshman's mind.
Pellams alone showed up. He was not in politics; further, he knew the value to himself of these evenings with Jimmy; not that the syllabi made much impression on him, but he carried enough to class next day to shadow forth an apparent knowledge of the subject. This he supplemented with two or three original reflections that interested the instructor and slipped him through. It was these flashes of intelligence that made him worth the labor to Mason. Sometimes he could set the whole seminary right on an obscure phrase; this made up for an hour of imperfect attention.
To-night the two men were hard at it. They sat at opposite sides of the table, the electric drop-light illuminating the papers between them.
"Say," said Pellams, "Bob Duncan's the luckiest baby in the bunch. He doesn't know as much about this course as I do, and he's got appendicitis, the doctor says—no fake."
"Now, Pellams," said Mason seriously, "you have to remember Cromwell. He did all this in sub-headings four to eleven. You've placed him, haven't you?"
"The guy that made them keep the powder dry?"
"The minister Cromwell; you remember him—the one who was bald."