“He was my fellow-passenger on the stage last evening.”
“So he told me.”
“John and he didn’t quite agree, but I dare say John was in fault. John is a spirited boy, Mr. Barclay, and is disposed to stand up for his rights.”
“And sometimes for what are not his rights,” thought the teacher; but this again was one of the things which he thought it would not be best to express.
“I think he will be a smart man,” continued the general.
“So I hope,” said Allen Barclay.
“As a lawyer, it won’t do him any harm to be a little tenacious.”
Allen Barclay thought the term tenacious rather a mild one to express John’s overbearing and grasping tendency. But he only said, “It won’t do for a lawyer to be too mild and unselfish.”
“Just my idea, Mr. Barclay. A milk-and-water sort of a man won’t succeed.”
At this moment John Wall entered the room.