It was indeed a matter for marveling. Luke Manders knew little of means or methods or rules, but he arrived at correct conclusions with a speed and accuracy which stopped barely short of magic.
“You keep on like this,” the man blinked and chuckled, “and I’ll have you keeping my books for me, before you can say ‘Jack Robinson!’” He sobered. “Now listen here, Luke. What you want is business college. Just get so you’re a little smoother on the reading and writing, and then we’ll start you in right off the bat, figuring and——”
“I would be beholden to you,” the boy interrupted with a show of eagerness. “I do not crave story-tale and song-ballad larning, suh. I crave numbers!”
“And that,” said Dr. Darrow to his daughter, following her downstairs, “is just what they do ‘crave’ generally, those mountaineers—stories and songs. (People claim, you know, that the things they sing and the yarns they spin have come straight down from the real old stuff in Scotland and England—read all about it in a magazine, two—three months ago!) But how he gets this bent for figures beats me! Goes to it like a duck to water, and he’s a wiz at it. By gad, he’s a wiz! He is, for a fact!”
Miss Ada Tenafee, requested to examine him and give a professional opinion as to the point at which he should start in school, came reluctantly, and only after considerable pleading on Glen’s part. Her expression on entering the Darrow’s unpleasant sitting room and encountering the young mountaineer was that of a well-bred lady detecting an unclean odor and genteelly endeavoring to ignore it. She was vague and non-committal, and said something under her breath about the probable briefness of his stay in the lowlands, and Glen, watching her, knew that she was mentally recalling “her own dear father’s rather common but very apt simile of the silk purse and the sow’s ear.”
Luke Manders, for his part, regarded her with frank scorn. It was clearly displeasing to him to find the font of learning guarded by this faded vestal. He answered grudgingly and did himself small credit until the doctor took charge of the quizzing and began to exhibit his prowess with numbers. Then, like a dancer compelled by the lure of rhythm, he performed.
“Well, now, Miss Tenafee,” the doctor demanded, “what do you think about that? Pretty keen, huh? With no more chance— Keen, huh?”
“Miz-zada” drew in her breath and a small quantity of dull color seeped into her sallow cheeks. “He is indeed—very—very—” she paused, visibly sorting her adjectives, choosing, rejecting.
“Well? Well?” the man prodded, impatiently.
The faded gentlewoman had found her word. “He is very sharp,” she said definitely.