"It rolls off him like water off a roof!" exclaimed Fred Harper, who was one of the newcomer's greatest admirers. And so it seemed, for Teeny-bits went about his work methodically and seemed entirely unimpressed by the attentions of his numerous followers. He made time to do his studying and did it well, but he was not what his classmates called a "shark"; he had to work and work hard for what he got.
One morning during a class in English literature, Mr. Stevens asked Bassett to tell what he knew about the writings of Walter Pater.
"Well," said Bassett, putting on a look of extreme intelligence, "he wrote quite a while ago and he didn't succeed at first very much, but toward the end he was more successful."
"Is that all you can tell me?" asked Mr. Stevens.
"Oh, no!" said Bassett with the manner of one whose knowledge has been underrated. "He was quite a figure in his time and he wrote a lot of stuff—I think it was——poetry."
"That's enough, Bassett," said Mr. Stevens. "Holbrook, can you tell me anything about Walter Pater?"
"No, sir, I can't," said Teeny-bits.
"Thank you," said Mr. Stevens. "I'd rather have an honest answer than an attempt to bluff!"
Every one in the room looked at Bassett, who scowled back at the smiles of his classmates. "I didn't try to bluff, sir," he said to Mr. Stevens, but the English master paid no attention to the denial and every one knew that the self-styled "Whirlwind" had been guilty of treating the truth as if it had been a rubber band.
The incident was small, but it increased the enmity that Bassett had for Teeny-bits and added another score to those scores that he intended some day to wipe out.