“I might have been a pro. by this time,” said Jan, set thinking of his prospects in his father’s life-time. “I certainly was more used to horses when I came here than I am now.”
“It isn’t as if we’d taught you book-keeping, for instance,” continued Heriot, pursuing his own line of thought. “That, I believe, is an important job on the most remote stations; but I doubt if we’ve even fitted you to audit books that have been kept for you. The only books we have rubbed into you are the very ones you’ll never open again. And what have you got out of them?”
“I can think of one thing,” said Jan—“and I got it from Mr. Haigh, too! Possunt quia posse videntur—you can because you think you can. I’ve often said that to myself when there was a good man in—and sometimes I’ve got him!”
“That’s good!” exclaimed Heriot. “That’s fine, Jan; you must let me tell Haigh that. Can you think of anything else?”
“I don’t know, sir. I never was much good at work. But sometimes I’ve thought it teaches you your place, a school like this.”
“It does—if you want teaching. But you——”
“I’d learnt it somewhere else, but I had it to learn all over again here.”
“You always have—each time you get your step—that’s one of the chief points about promotion! You may have been schoolmastering for fifteen years, but you’ve got to learn your place even in your own house when you get one.”
That touch put Jan more at his ease.
“And you may have been in the Eleven two or three years,” said he, “but you’ve got a new job to tackle when you’re captain. They say there’s room at the top, but there isn’t room to sit down!”