“Surely!  Surely!  Strange that I should have forgotten that.  It is a pleasure you have in store then, Mr. Phelps.”

“Can you give me any suggestions how to do better work, professor?” inquired Will mildly.

“My advice to you is to secure Mr. Franklin of the present junior class to tutor you for a time.”

“Thank you.  I’ll try to see him to-night,” said Will rising and preparing to depart.

“That might be wise.  I trust you will call upon me again, Mr. Phelps.  I have enjoyed this call exceedingly.  You will not misunderstand me if I say I had slight knowledge of your classic tastes before, and I am sure that I congratulate you heartily, Mr. Phelps.  I do indeed.”

“Thank you,” replied Will respectfully, and he then departed from the house.  He was divided between a feeling of keen disappointment and a desire to laugh as he walked up the street toward his dormitory.  And this was the man who was to stimulate his intellectual processes!  In his thoughts he contrasted him with his professor in Latin, and the man as well as the language sank lower and lower in his estimation.  And yet he must meet it.  The problem might be solved but could not be evaded.  He would see Franklin at once, he decided.

CHAPTER XV

A REVERSED DECISION

In the days that immediately followed, Will Phelps found himself so busy that there was but little time afforded for the pleasures of comradeship or for the lighter side of college life.  Acting upon the one good point in the advice of his professor of Greek he secured a tutor, and though he found but little pleasure in the study, still he gave himself to it so unreservedly that when a few weeks had elapsed, a new light, dim somewhat, it was true, and by no means altogether cheering, began to appear upon his pathway.  It was so much more difficult to catch up than to keep up, and perhaps this was the very lesson which Will Phelps needed most of all to learn.  There was not much time given to recreation now, and Will acting upon the advice of the instructor in athletics had abandoned his projected practice in running though his determination to try to secure a place on the track team was as strong as ever.  But he had substituted for the running a line of work in the gymnasium which tended to develop the muscles in his legs and keep his general bodily condition in good form.  He was informed that success in running was based upon nerve force as well as upon muscular power, and that “early to bed” was almost as much a requisite here as it was in making a man “healthy and wealthy and wise.”  This condition however he found it exceedingly difficult to fulfill, for the additional work he was doing in Greek made a severe draught upon his time as well as upon his energies.

“I hate the stuff!” he declared one night to his room-mate after he had spent several hours in an almost vain effort to fasten certain rules in his mind.  “You don’t catch me taking it after this year.”