Holt was in the Special Course. He was a converted brakeman from the Hecla and St. Mary’s, a flourishing Western railway. Holt, being the only student present who had not received any undue measure of collegiate culture, was treated with marked courtesy by his more liberally educated fellow-students.
“We are reading Darwin up at my room, two or three of us, after dinner,” observed Fenton kindly. “We should be happy to have you join us sometimes, Holt.”
Holt blinked at the speaker with that uncertain motion of the eyelids which means half intellectual confusion, and half personal embarrassment. Not a man of these young Christians had smiled; yet the Special Course student, being no natural fool, vaguely perceived that something had gone wrong.
But Fenton was vivaciously discussing last November’s ball games with his vis-à-vis, a middler whose name is unknown to history. It was some time before he said, looking far down the long table:—
“Bayard, who is it that says it takes three generations to make a gentleman?”
“Why, Holmes, I suppose,” answered he who was addressed. “Who else would be likely to say it?”
“Any of the Avonsons might have said it,” observed a gentlemanly fellow from the extreme end of the table; he returned his spoon to his saucer as he spoke. There were several students at the club who did not drink with their spoons in their teacups, and even laid the knife and fork in parallels upon the plate, and this was one of the men. He had an effective and tenderly cherished mustache. He was, on the whole, a handsome man. It was thought that he would settle over a city parish.
“I doubt if there was ever an Avonson who could have said it, Bent,” replied Bayard. The Avonsons were a prominent New England family, not unknown to diplomacy and letters, nor even to Holt of the Hecla and St. Mary’s.
“But why, then?” persisted Bent.
“They have believed it too thoroughly and too long to say anything so fine.”