But for more than three days a subtle effect of the meeting would remain with him. For many days he would carry his head a bit higher. A color flush would show upon his hollow cheeks; his step would take on an unaccustomed elasticity. For a discriminating Fate had touched to the old professor's lips the cup of life and he had sipped of the contents, and another year was his. IV I remember him best as I saw him first. It was in the late afternoon of a golden day in mid-October. A companion pointed him out to me as we approached the ivy-green library. He was coming slowly down the steps, one arm encircling a great bundle of books, one hand fumbling at his neck scarf. The clothes he wore were of another day. The coat was full-skirted, long, and bulging at the breast. About his thin throat was twisted a black silk stock, frayed and rusty, over which the loose and unstarched collar rolled. On his broad-toed shoes his baggy trousers fell in folds. There was a seeming rigidity to the creases that induced the thought they must have been so always; like the wrinkles in the wrappings of a mummy. And yet, infinitely pathetic as the picture was, I knew that such a coat, such a stock, even such a round crowned, broad brimmed soft hat as that he wore, once had made the old professor a man of fashion--a quarter of a century before. "That's the oldest professor on the campus," my companion said. "In college? No. He hasn't taught a class for twenty years. He was an old fogey and they removed him, I'm told, to make room for a younger man. He's only waiting for the end now. Every one says he'd give five years to get back on the faculty. You'll usually find him near the library, either just going in or just coming out. He hides himself all day among the books. The fellows call him 'The Ghost.' I've been told he saved a little from his salary every quarter and that now he lives in a little back room somewhere near the campus and cooks his own meals." And whenever after that I saw him it was this last phrase that recurred to me with almost painful insistency ... "lives in a little back room somewhere ... and cooks his own meals." It was hard for youth to realize that such could be humanity's reward to a man who had given a life of patience, forebearance, toil, and sacrifice, to make his little world the better for his having lived within it. We stood apart and watched him as he came slowly down the broad, stone steps. At the last he stopped and looked up at the sky. We saw his face more clearly then. It was thin, pale, drawn about the mouth, but the eyes were infinitely tender. His lips trembled and seemed to form words that were not uttered. Then he walked on. Twice, before he turned the corner of the ivy-covered wall, he raised a hand to his face and passed the dangling finger-tips of his black cloth glove across his eyes.