That was the whole truth.  Dr. Brandegee was too big, in mind as well as body, for any boy of their size to feel at all uneasy after the first half-minute of looking in his calm, broad, thoughtful face.  Every member of that quartet began to feel a queer sort of impatience to tell all he knew about books.

The doctor mentioned the fact that he had that morning received letters from their parents and friends, announcing their arrival; but the oddity of it was that he seemed to know, at sight, the right name for each boy, and the right boy for each name.

“He might have guessed at Dick,” thought Ford; “but how did he know me?”

Perhaps a quarter of a century spent in receiving, classifying, and managing young gentlemen of all sorts had given the man of learning special faculties for his work.

“I shall have to ask you a few questions, my young friends; but I think there will be little difficulty in assigning you your places and studies.  Be seated, please.”

That library was plainly a place where no time was to be wasted, for in less than a minute more Ford Foster was suddenly stopped in the middle of a passage of easy Latin,—­

“That will do.  Give me a free translation.”

Ford did so, glibly enough; but there followed no word of comment, favorable or otherwise.  Similar brief glimpses were taken of three or four other studies; and then the doctor suddenly remarked to him, in French,—­

“Your father has written me very fully concerning your previous studies.  You are well prepared, but you have plenty of hard work before you.”

Ford fairly strained his best French in the reply he made; and the doctor observed,—­

“I see.  Constant practice.  I wish more parents would be as wise.—­Mr. Harley, I had not been informed that you spoke French.  You noticed Mr. Foster’s mistake.  Please correct it for him.”

Frank blushed to his eyes, but he obeyed; and he hardly knew how it was, that, before the doctor’s rapid questioning was over, his answers had included the whole range of his schooling and acquirements.

“Isn’t dey doin’ fine!” was the proud thought in the mind of Dick Lee.  “But jes’ wait till he gits hol’ ob Cap’n Dab!”

Dick’s confidence in his friend was at least ten times greater than Dabney’s in himself.  The very air of the room he was in seemed, to the latter, to grow oppressively heavy with learning, and he dreaded his own turn more than ever.  While he was waiting for it to come, however, some casual reference to Long Island by the doctor, and a question as to the precise character of its southern coast, rapidly expanded into a wider range of geography, upon the heels of which history trod a little carelessly, and other subjects came tumbling in, until Dabney discovered that he was computing, at the doctor’s request, sundry arithmetical results, which might with greater propriety have been reserved for his “examination.”