*CHAPTER XXXIV* *A WAY THAT WOMEN HAVE* Friday for John was a day of impatience, its tedious hours consumed in turning over and over in his mind the story he would tell upon the witness stand and the plea he would make to the court for a dismissal of the complaint against him; when the day was finished, John found his mind in a rather chaotic state, and it seemed to him that little had been accomplished. But if little happened that day in Encina which was of moment to his cause, there was an interesting sequence of events transpiring in Chicago, which had at least some relation to the matter; for this was the day upon which the degrees were being conferred. The assembly hall of the great university was large, and every seat was taken. The huge platform was decked, studded, draped and upholstered with professors, assistant professors and presidents, all in mortar boards and gowns, the somber black of the latter relieved by the rich colors of the insignia indicating the rank or character of their respective degrees. The presence of all this banked and massed doctorial dignity made the atmosphere of the hall to reek with erudition. The vast number of individuals in front felt their puny intellects dwarfed to pigeon’s brains. Hitherto some of them had rather congratulated themselves that they knew the multiplication table and the rule of three. Now their instinct was to grovel. Yet not all of that assemblage were so impressed. Robert Mitchell was not. Huge of chest, thick-fingered, heavy-shouldered, amiable of his broad countenance, shrewd of eye, and growing thin of that curly brown thatch which had been one of Hibernia’s gifts to his ensemble, he surveyed the scene with a critic’s air. Not that Mitchell scorned the pundits of learning. Being the vice-president of a transcontinental line of railroad and therefore necessarily a man of wide acquaintance and of wide employment of the talents of mankind, he knew there were occasions when even he must wait upon the pronouncements of some spectacled creature of the laboratory. Still, he could not help reflecting that he would like to see that pale, gangling pundit on the end try to calculate the exact instant in which to throw the lever to make a flying switch. He would like further to see that fellow with a dome that loomed like a water-tank on the desert try to pick up a string of car numbers as they ran by him on the track, and see how many he could carry in his head and carry right.