Haydock had taken the fellow’s measure when he said that of him. The tutor was thoroughly “human.” He was inclined to like most of the men he had met at the Signet in a frank, simple way that demanded nothing, and ended by getting much; with corresponding naturalness, he liked being liked by them. Moreover, the dreariness of his first two years left no more permanent effect on him than the horrors of a January passage leave on a traveller who at length reaches port. McGaw proved himself a normal young person, by the comfortable manner in which the general hopelessness of his past situation receded from his memory, and left behind it one or two sharp details of a purely personal nature. He didn’t, for instance, recall very vividly how it felt to go more or less hungry for several days at a time; but, on the other hand, he couldn’t pass Wolcott on the street without tingling all over with anger and contempt. The recollection of Wolcott’s treatment of him refused to soften and fade; the sound of Wolcott’s insolent laughter never grew faint. McGaw still felt bitterly toward Wolcott. The tutor was human enough; and he hadn’t begun to show how human he could be. He was something like the little girl who, on being told that she had big eyes, answered, “Well, if you think they’re big now, you just ought to see me open them really wide once.” Whenever McGaw came across Wolcott, he thought of a remark a certain terrible old man used to make to his enemies:-- “You’ll all have a chance to get back at me if you live long enough,” this terrible old man was in the habit of saying encouragingly. “The only trouble is, so many of you seem to die at seventy.” McGaw often hoped that he wouldn’t be cut off at that age without having had a slap of some kind at Wolcott. So, although he didn’t exactly seek an opportunity, he was by no means blind to it when it presented itself, which it did with gratifying despatch.