“Yes, you’re a nice boy, just as everybody tells you; a nice, big, blundering, stupid, Newfoundland-dog boy.”

He had laughed good-humouredly, and had forgotten.  Now he caught at one word of it.  That might explain it; he was just plain stupid!  And stupid boys either played polo or drove fancy horses or ran yachts—­or occupied ornamental—­too ornamental—­desks for an hour or so a day.  Bob remembered how, as a small boy, he used to hold the ends of the reins under the delighted belief that he was driving his father’s spirited pair.

“I’ve outgrown holding the reins, thank you,” he said aloud in disgust.  At the sound of his voice the diver disappeared.  Bob laughed and felt a trifle better.

He reviewed himself dispassionately.  He could not but admit that he had tried hard enough, and that he had courage.  It was just a case of limitation.  Bob, for the first time, bumped against the stone wall that hems us in on all sides—­save toward the sky.

He fell into a profound discouragement; a discouragement that somehow found its prototype in the mournful little lake with its leaden water, its cold breeze, its whispering, dried marsh grasses, its funereal tamaracks, and its lonesome diver.

X

But Bob was no quitter.  The next morning he tramped down to the office, animated by a new courage.  Even stupid boys learn, he remembered.  It takes longer, of course, and requires more application.  But he was strong and determined.  He remembered Fatty Hayes, who took four years to make the team—­Fatty, who couldn’t get a signal through his head until about time for the next play, and whose great body moved appreciable seconds after his brain had commanded it; Fatty Hayes, the “scrub’s” chopping block for trying out new men on!  And yet he did make the team in his senior year.  Bob acknowledged him a very good centre, not brilliant, but utterly sure and safe.

Full of this dogged spirit, he tackled the day’s work.  It was a heavy day’s work.  The mill was just hitting its stride, the tall ships were being laden and sent away to the four winds, buyers the country over were finishing their contracts.  Collins, his coat off, his sleeve protectors strapped closely about his thin arms, worked at an intense white heat.  He wasted no second of time, nor did he permit discursive interruption.  His manner to those who entered the office was civil but curt.  Time was now the essence of the contract these men had with life.

About ten o’clock he turned from a swift contemplation of the tally board.

“Orde!” said he sharply.

Bob disentangled himself from his chair.

“Look there,” said the bookkeeper, pointing a long and nervous finger at three of the tags he held in his hand.

“There’s three errors.”  He held out for inspection the original sealers’ report which he had dug out of the files.