“Yes, Bob, —­ I expect they’ll do more for me than ever you will.”

“I’ll do a great deal for you, Governor, —­ I want you to come with me to Coldstream —­ I want you to see them all at home; we’ll have a good time. —­ Come!” —­

“How do you suppose that old heathen ever got hold of such a thought as this?” —­ said Winthrop composedly; and he read, without minding his auditors —­

“tis d’oiden, ei to zen men ei to katthanein, to katthanein de zen ;” * [* Bunyan used to say, “The Latin I borrow.”  I must follow so illustrious an example and confess, The Greek is lent.] “Who knows if to live is not to die, and dying but to live.”

“I should think he had a bad time in this world,” said Bob; “and maybe he thought Apollo would make interest for his verses in the land of shades.”

“But Plato echoes the sentiment, —­ look here, —­ and he was no believer in the old system.  Where do you suppose he got his light on the subject?”

“Out of a dark lantern.  I say, Winthrop, I want light on my subject —­ Will you come to Coldstream?”

“I don’t see any light that way, Bob; —­ I must stick fast by my dark lantern.”

“Are you going to stay in Shagarack?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a deuced shame! —­”

“What do you make of this sentence, Mr. Cool? —­”

But Bob declined to construe, and took himself off, with a hearty slap on Winthrop’s shoulder, and a hearty shake of his hand.

“He’s so strong, there’s no use in trying to fight him into reason,” he remarked to Rufus as he went off.

“What do you suppose Bob Cool would make of your Platonic quotation?” said Rufus.

“What do you make of it?” said Winthrop after a slight pause.

“Eremitical philosophy! —­ Do you admire it?”

“I was thinking mamma would,” said Winthrop.

That year came to its end, not only the solar but the collegiate.  Rufus took his degree brilliantly; was loaded with compliments; went to spend a while at home, and then went to Mannahatta; to make some preparatory arrangements for entering upon a piece of employment to which President Tuttle had kindly opened him a way.  Winthrop changed his form in the grammar school for the Junior Greek class, which happened to be left without any teacher by the removal of the Greek professor to the headship of another College.  To this charge he proved himself fully competent.  It made the same breaches upon his time, and gave him rather more amends than his form in the grammar school.  And amid his various occupations, Winthrop probably kept himself warm without a new overcoat; for he had none.