Herbert laughed, saying: “I think you'll have to get somebody that knows more than I, then; I wouldn't venture to teach a college student.”
“I mean that you shall hear my lessons. I want you to imagine yourself a college professor and ask me questions on what you have just read.”
“Do you think I can?”
“You may bungle a little at first, but you'll improve. If you do well, when I get through with you I will try to get you a professor's chair at some college.”
“I should like that, if professors get well paid.”
“They generally get more than five dollars a week; but that is all that I can afford to pay at present.”
“I'm only an apprentice,” said Herbert smiling, “and am quite satisfied.”
Herbert began to question Cameron on what he had been reading. He did not find it altogether easy, partly from want of practice, partly because the subject was one he knew nothing about. But whenever blunders were made Cameron laughed good-naturedly and the young professor joined in the merriment.
“We'll take political economy next,” said the student. “You won't find that so dry as logic.”
Though political economy is generally studied in the junior or senior year at college, its principles, if familiarly illustrated, are not beyond the comprehension of a boy of fifteen. He found himself reading with interest, and when he came to act the role of professor he acquitted himself more creditably than with logic.