"But farm work is so hard," she persisted. "And he appears to be so well equipped for something better. At times, he is almost brilliant."
"A brightness in the rough," said the Professor. "He has that crude quality of force which sometimes puts to shame the more nearly even puissance of a systematic training."
She looked at him as if her eyes said, "Charming." And the world had suffered him to go to seed, nodding his ripe and bursting pod in the empty air. It was a shame. But his treatise on philosophy—she must find out about that.
"Professor, have you ever written anything?"
He smiled. "Madam, the web I have woven, if spun straight, would encircle the globe. I have written."
"Philosophy?"
"Finance, madam."
She choked a laugh in its infant uprising. That this threadbare man should write about money! How ridiculous! But true genius has many a curious kink.
Mrs. Blakemore, feeling that she was neglected, brought in Bobbie to annoy the company with him. She bade him shake hands with Mr. Milford; she commanded him to recite for the Professor. The learned man smiled. He said that there was nothing so sweet as the infant lip, lisping its way into the fields of knowledge. Multicharged by his mother, the boy began to fire off, "I am not mad, no, am not mad." Mrs. Stuvic, who had been remarkably quiet, got up and remarked as she passed Milford: "This lets me out; yes, you bet!"
The Professor applauded the youngster. He would be a great man, some day. He had the voice and the manner of the true orator. Only seven years old? Quite remarkable. His mother stroked his hair, and said that, in fact, he would not be seven till the eighteenth of September. At this the Professor was much surprised. Really a remarkable boy.