Commencement day was coming on apace.  I was soon to go forth, with the rest of my class, to astonish and delight a waiting world.  The Professor seemed to avoid me more than ever.  Nothing but the conventionalities, I think kept him from shaping his treatment of me on the basis of unconcealed disgust.

At last, in the very recklessness of despair, I resolved to see him, plead with him, threaten him if need be, and risk all my fortunes on one desperate chance.  I wrote him a somewhat defiant letter, stating my aspirations, and, as I flattered myself, shrewdly giving him a week to get over the first shock of horrified surprise.  Then I was to call and learn my fate.

During the week of suspense I nearly worried myself into a fever.  It was first crazy hope, and then saner despair.  On Friday evening, when I presented myself at the Professor’s door, I was such a haggard, sleepy, dragged-out spectre, that even Miss Jocasta, the harsh-favored maiden sister of the Surd’s, admitted me with commiserate regard, and suggested pennyroyal tea.

Professor Surd was at a faculty meeting.  Would I wait?

Yes, till all was blue, if need be.  Miss Abbie?

Abscissa had gone to Wheelborough to visit a school-friend.  The aged maiden hoped I would make myself comfortable, and departed to the unknown haunts which knew Jocasta’s daily walk.

Comfortable!  But I settled myself in a great uneasy chair and waited, with the contradictory spirit common to such junctures, dreading every step lest it should herald the man whom, of all men, I wished to see.

I had been there at least an hour, and was growing right drowsy.

At length Professor Surd came in.  He sat down in the dusk opposite me, and I thought his eyes glinted with malignant pleasure as he said, abruptly: 

“So, young man, you think you are a fit husband for my girl?”

I stammered some inanity about making up in affection what I lacked in merit; about my expectations, family and the like.  He quickly interrupted me.

“You misapprehend me, sir.  Your nature is destitute of those mathematical perceptions and acquirements which are the only sure foundations of character.  You have no mathematics in you.  You are fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils.—­Shakespeare.  Your narrow intellect cannot understand and appreciate a generous mind.  There is all the difference between you and a Surd, if I may say it, which intervenes between an infinitesimal and an infinite.  Why, I will even venture to say that you do not comprehend the Problem of the Couriers!”

I admitted that the Problem of the Couriers should be classed rather without my list of accomplishments than within it.  I regretted this fault very deeply, and suggested amendment.  I faintly hoped that my fortune would be such—­

“Money!” he impatiently exclaimed.  “Do you seek to bribe a Roman Senator with a penny whistle?  Why, boy, do you parade your paltry wealth, which, expressed in mills, will not cover ten decimal places, before the eyes of a man who measures the planets in their orbits, and close crowds infinity itself?”