"Of course! I know it would! And that's what I'm willing to do and what I want to do, professor. But the trouble is I don't know just how to work."
"I—I fail to see precisely what you mean."
"Why, I spend time enough but I don't seem to 'get there'—I mean I don't seem to accomplish much. My translation's not much good, and everything is wrong.""Perhaps you have an innate deficiency—"
"You mean I'm a fool?" Will laughed good-naturedly, and even the professor smiled.
"Ah, no. By no means, Mr. Phelps, quite the contrary to that, I assure you. There are some men who are very brilliant students in certain subjects, but are very indifferent ones in others. For example, I recollect that some twenty years ago—or to be exact nineteen years ago—there was a student in my classes who was very brilliant, very brilliant indeed. His name as I recall it was Wilder. So proficient was he in his Greek that some of the students facetiously called him Socrates, and some still more facetious even termed him Soc. I am sure, Mr. Phelps, you have been in college a sufficient length of time to apprehend the frolicsome nature of some of the students here."
"I certainly have," Will remarked with a smile, recalling his own compulsory collar-button race.
"I fawncied so. Well, this Mr. Wilder to whom I refer was doing remarkable work, truly remarkable work in Greek, but for some cause his standing in mathematics was extremely low, and in other branches he was not a brilliant success."
"What did he do?" inquired Will eager to bring the tedious description to a close, and if possible receive the suggestions for which he had come.
"My recollection is that he finally left college."
"Indeed!" Will endeavored to be duly impressed by the startling fact, but as he recalled the professor's statement that the brilliant Wilder was in college something like twenty years before this time, his brilliancy in being able to complete the course and now be out from the college did not seem to him to indicate any undue precocity on the part of the aforesaid student.