and profound wisdom put up in pellets of pungent epigram.  He rose at a long dinner-table, so placed that as he stood his eye swept down rows upon rows of other long tables, where the diners had all pushed back their chairs to turn and look at him.  His words were honeyed, of a magic compelling power, so that as he reached his peroration, aged magnates could not be restrained from producing fountain-pen and check-book; he saw them pushing aside coffee-cups to indite rows of o’s of staggering length.  Blames College now tenanted a new home on a grassy knoll outside the city.  The single ramshackle barn which had housed the institution prior to the coming of President West was replaced by a cluster of noble edifices of classic marble.  The president sat in his handsome office, giving an audience to a delegation of world-famous professors from the University of Paris.  They had been dispatched by the French nation to study his methods on the ground.

“Why, hello, Colonel!  Bless your heart, I am glad to see you, sir....”

Colonel Cowles, looking up from his ancient seat, gave an exclamation of surprise and pleasure.  He welcomed the young man affectionately.  West sat down, and once more pen-sketched his travels and his plans for Blames College.  He was making a second, or miniature, grand tour that afternoon, regreeting all his friends, and was thus compelled to tell his story many times; but his own interest in it appeared ever fresh.  For Blames he asked and was promised the kindly offices of the Post.

The Colonel, in his turn, gave a brief account of his vacationless summer, of his daily work, of the progress of the Post’s Policies.

“I hear,” said West, “that that little scientist I made you a present of last year has made a ten-strike.”

“Queed?  An extraordinary thing,” said the Colonel, relighting his cigar.  “I was on the point of discharging him, you remember, with the hearty approval of the directors.  His stuff was dismal, abysmal, and hopeless.  One day he turned around and began handing in stuff of a totally different kind.  First-rate, some of it.  I thought at first that he must be hiring somebody to do it for him.  Did you see the paper while you were away?”

“Very irregularly, I’m sorry to say.”

“Quite on his own hook, the boy turned up one day with an article on the Centre Street ‘mashers’ that was a screamer.  You know what that situation was—­”

“Yes, yes.”

“I had for some time had it in mind to tackle it myself.  The fact was that we were developing a class of boy Don Juans that were a black disgrace to the city.  It was a rather unpleasant subject, but this young man handled it with much tact, as well as with surprising vigor and ability.  His improvement seemed to date from right there.  I encouraged him to follow up his first effort, and he wrote a strong series which attracted attention all through the State, and has already brought about decided improvement.”