"You're always reading ... good books too ... yet you're no more good in school than you are at work ... I can't make you out, by the living God, I can't ... what is it you want to be?"
"I don't know, only I want to go back to school again."
"But what did you leave for?"
"I hated arithmetic."
"What do you want to study, then?"
"Languages."
"Would you like a special course in the high school?
"Principal Balling of the Keeley Heights High School might be able to work you in. He is a brother Mason of mine."
"I know some Latin and Greek and Ancient History already. I have been teaching myself."
"Well, you are a queer fish ... there never was anyone like you in the family, except your mother. She used to read and read, and read. And once or twice she wrote a short story ... had one accepted, even, by the Youth's Companion once, but never printed."