"You know more than Jake Dennison, I reckon, except about devilment. I was afred you mightn't be quite up to the place here; you was rather young when I seen you last." He measured him as he might have done a young bullock. "Oh, I fancy I shall be," interrupted the young man, flushing at the suggestion. "You've got to learn them Dennison boys, and them Dennison boys is pretty hard to learn anything. You will need all the grit you've got." "Oh, I'll teach them," asserted Gordon, confidently. The old man's eye rested on him. "'Tain't _teachin'_ I'm a-talkin' about. It's _learnin'_ I'm tellin' you they need. You've got to learn 'em a good deal, or they'll learn you. Them Dennison boys is pretty slow at learnin'." The young man intimated that he thought he was equal to it. "Well, we'll see," grunted the old fellow, with something very like a twinkle in his deep eyes. "Not as they'll do you any harm without you undertake to interfere with them," he drawled. "But you're pretty young to manage 'em jest so; you ain't quite big enough either, and you're too big to git in through the cat-hole. And I allow that you don't stand no particular show after the first week or so of gittin' into the house any other way." "I'll get in, though, and I won't go in through the cat-hole either. I'll promise you that, if you'll sustain me." "Oh, I'll sustain you," drawled the squire. "I'll sustain you in anything you do, except to pizon 'em with _slow_ pizon, and I ain't altogether sure that wouldn' be jest manslaughter." "All right." Keith's eyes snapped, and presently, as the outer man's gaze rested on him, his snapped also. So the compact was struck, and the trustee went on to give further information. "Your hours will be as usual," said he: "from seven to two and fo' to six in summer, and half-past seven to two and three to five in winter, and you'll find all the books necessary in the book-chist. We had to have 'em locked up to keep 'em away from the rats and the dirt-daubers. Some of 'em's right smartly de-faced, but I reckon you'll git on with 'em all right." "Well, those are pretty long hours," said Gordon. "Seems to me they had better be shortened. I shall--" "Them's the usual hours," interrupted the old man, positively. "I've been trustee now for goin' on twenty-six year, an' th'ain't never been any change in 'em. An' I ain't see as they've ever been too long--leastways, I never see as the scholars ever learned too much in 'em. They ain't no longer than a man has to work in the field, and the work's easier." Gordon looked at the old man keenly. It was his first battle, and it had come on at once, as his father had warned him. The struggle was bitter, if brief, but he conquered--conquered himself. The old countryman's face had hardened. "If you want to give satisfaction you'd better try to learn them scholars an' not the trustees," he said dryly. "The Dennison boys is hard, but we're harder."