The person Ranny referred to did n't seem very promising to me. We sleep next each other in a history course. He never wears a necktie, and the last time I saw him there were a lot of dead maple leaves tangled up in his beard. No one seems to know why he is here.
"Well, that makes three right away," Ranny declared enthusiastically. "Perhaps Berrisford will join; but even if he does n't three 's enough."
The very next morning after this Ranny appeared to say he was going to consult Professor Pallas about the new course, and wanted me to go along and put in a word now and then. This seemed a little sudden to me, and I said that perhaps I ought to consult my adviser before taking up a new study, as I had n't done particularly well in the old ones. However, Ranny said that my adviser ought to be thankful at my showing so much interest and public spirit. So we went over to Professor Pallas's little private room in Sever. He was very glad to see us, and when Ranny began to explain the subject of our coming, his old eyes just glittered. He kept smiling to himself and nodding his head in assent, and once, when Ranny paused for breath, he brought his fist down on the table, exclaiming,
"I predicted this—predicted it." Then he thrust his hands in his pockets and paced excitedly up and down the room. Ranny was of course tremendously encouraged, and I was somewhat horrified a moment later, to have him turn toward me and with a wave of his hand declare,—
"My friend, Mr. Wood, feels this weakness in the curriculum more, perhaps, than any of us; for long before he entered college with the purpose of specialising in the subject, he surrounded himself with a collection of Egyptian antiquities that far excels anything of the kind on this side of the British Museum." (He was referring in his intense way to a handful of imitation scarabs and a dissipated-looking old mummified parrot that Uncle Peter brought home from his trip up the Nile. I had indiscreetly mentioned them one afternoon.) "We are sure of four earnest workers, and there are, no doubt, many more."
Now the thing that worries me about all this is that Professor Pallas seemed so gratified and eager to help the cause. His attitude toward us was that of a scholar among scholars,—deep calling unto deep. He said that he would love to conduct a course in hieroglyphics himself, but feared he was n't competent, as he had merely taken up the subject as a kind of recreation at odd moments during the last six or eight years. He could n't recall any one in the United States who was competent, in fact, but he knew of a splendid authority in Germany,—just the man for the place,—and he would speak to the President about him at the next Faculty meeting. Ranny and I thanked him profusely, and that at present is where the matter stands. I wake up in the night sometimes, positively cold at the thought of having added hieroglyphics to my other worries. Think of a course for which you could n't buy typewritten notes,—a course the very lectures of which would be in German,—a course so terrible that no one in the United States would dare undertake to tutor you in it when you got stuck.
The Christmas holidays are almost here, but it has not been decided yet whether or not I am to spend them at home. Mildred is still gadding about, and papa may have to go to New York on business. If he does, mamma will, no doubt, go with him, and I'll join them there, and we'll all have thin slabs of Christmas turkey surrounded by bird bath-tubs at a hotel. Berri has invited me to spend the vacation with him (his mother is living in Washington this winter), but as he remarks dolefully every now and then that he has to stay in Cambridge to write a thesis that is due immediately after the holidays, I don't see how he means to manage. He's been putting off that thesis from day to day until I don't see how he can possibly do all the reading and writing and note-taking it necessitates. I 've tried to get him started once or twice, but he has merely groaned and said,—
"You 're a nice one to preach industry, are n't you?" So I've given up. Well, it's none of my business if he gets fired from the course.
X
I might have spared myself my anxiety in regard to the course in hieroglyphics. My adviser overtook me in the yard a day or so after our interview with Professor Pallas, and after walking along with me for a while he said,—