“Do you know,” said he, turning his glowing face upon her, “I’m not so eager for mere numbers now.  That is one point on which my views have shifted during my studies this summer.  My ideal is no longer a very large college—­at least not necessarily large—­but a college of the very highest standards.  A distinguished faculty of recognized authorities in their several lines; an earnest student body, large if you can get them, but always made of picked men admitted on the strictest terms; degrees recognized all over the country as an unvarying badge of the highest scholarship—­these are what I shall strive for.  My ultimate ambition,” said Charles Gardiner West, dreamily, “is to make of Blaines College an institution like the University of Paris.”

He sprang up presently with great contrition, part real, part mock, over having absorbed so much of the honest tax-payer’s property, the Departmental time.  No, he could not be induced to appropriate a moment more; he was going to run on up the street and call on Colonel Cowles.

“How is the old gentleman, anyway?”

“His spirits,” said Sharlee, “were never better, and he is working like a horse.  But I’m afraid the dear is beginning to feel his years a little.”

“He’s nearly seventy, you know.  By the bye, what ever became of that young helper you and I unloaded on him last year—­the queer little man with the queer little name?”

Sharlee saw that President West had entirely forgotten their conversation six months before, when he had promised to protect this same young helper from Colonel Cowles and the Post directors.  She smiled indulgently at this evidence of the absent-mindedness of the great.

“Became of him!  Why, you’re going to make him regular assistant editor at your directors’ meeting next month.”

“Are we, though!  I had it in the back of my head that he was fired early in the summer.”

“Well, you see, when he saw the axe descending, he pulled off a little revolution all by himself and all of a sudden learned to write.  Make the Colonel tell you about it.”

“I’m not surprised,” said West.  “I told you last winter, you know, that I believed in that boy.  Great heavens!  It’s glorious to be back in this old town again!”

He went down the broad steps of the Capitol, and out the winding white walkway through the park.  Nearly everybody he met stopped him with a friendly greeting and a welcome home.  He walked the shady path with his light stick swinging, his eyes seeing, not an arch of tangible trees, but the shining vista which dreamers call the Future....  He stood upon a platform, fronting a vast white meadow of upturned faces.  He was speaking to this meadow, his theme being “Education and the Rise of the Masses,” and the people, displaying an enthusiasm rare at lectures upon such topics, roared their approval as he shot at them great terse truths, the essence of wide reading