Will bowed but did not speak, for he was afraid to interrupt or to divert the childlike man from the channel in which his thoughts appeared to be running.

“Such a name once given,” resumed the professor, “would doubtless cling to one long after physical changes had been made that would no longer afford an accurate basis for the nomenclature.  But I was very slight, very slight indeed, Mr. Phelps, when I first came here some seventeen years ago, or, to be exact, seventeen years and four months, that is, four months lacking a few days.  Why, I believe I weighed only one hundred and seventeen pounds at the time.”

Will strove to be duly impressed by the fact, but as he looked at the man who was somewhat above six feet in height and whose body did not give many tokens of having increased materially in breadth or thickness since the time to which the professor referred, he found it extremely difficult to repress the smile that rose to his lips.

“Yes,” resumed the professor quickly, “I have increased in weight since that time but the appellation still clings and doubtless will as long as I remain in Winthrop.”

“How much do you weigh now, professor?” The moment Will asked the question he regretted it, but the temptation was too strong to be resisted.

“I cannot say exactly,” said the professor in some confusion, “but my weight has very materially increased.  If I recall aright, the last time when I was weighed I had added two and three-quarters pounds.  It is true it was in the winter and doubtless heavier clothing may have slightly modified the result.  But still I can safely affirm that I am much heavier than I was at the time when I joined the Winthrop faculty.”

“Do you find that you feel better now that you are more corpulent?  I have heard it said that addition to the body is subtraction from the brain.  Do you think that is so, professor?”

“It is true, most assuredly.  All classifical literature confirms the statement you have just made.”

“Then you don’t believe in athletics, do you, professor?”

“Assuredly not.  Most assuredly not.”

“But didn’t the ancient Greeks have their racecourses?  Didn’t they believe in running and jumping and boxing and I don’t know what all?”

“That is true, but the times were very different then.  They had not in the least lost the sense of the poetry of life.  They were not so crassly or grossly materialistic as the present age undoubtedly is.  Every grove was peopled with divinities, every mountain was the abode of the unseen.  Why, Mr. Phelps, the Greeks were the only people that ever lived that looked upon mountains as anything but blots or defects.”

“Is that so?” inquired Will in surprise.

“It certainly is.  It is true that since the days of the poet Gray there has been a tendency among English-speaking people to affect a veneration for the mountains, but it is, I fawncy, only a faint echo of the old Greek conception and is a purely superficial product of an extremely superficial age and people.”