"True enough. I know what _I'd_ do. And I believe you'd be a very generous young man, indeed--as long as being generous did not entail any particular work on your part." "Oh--now--I call that unfair!" he complained. "We can't all be like you, Janice. I believe you lay awake nights thinking up nice things to do for folks----" "There you go again--making fun of me," she said, shaking a gloved finger at him. "I don't claim to be a bit more unselfish than the next one. But I'm not lazy." "Thanks! I suppose I am?" "There you go--picking one up so quick," Janice repeated. "I _do_ think, however, that you just don't care, a good deal of the time. If things only go on smoothly----" "That's what I told you Christmas Day," he said, quickly. "And isn't it so?" "Well--it used to be," he admitted, shaking his head ruefully. "But I'm not sure but that, since you've got me going----" "_Me?_" exclaimed Janice. "What have _I_ got to do with it?" "Now, there's no use your saying that you don't know why I took up that matter of the new school last month," said Nelson Haley, seriously. "You spoke just as though you were ashamed of me when we talked about it, and I began to wonder if I wasn't a fit subject for heart-searching inquiry," and the teacher burst into laughter again. But Janice felt that he was more serious than usual, and she hastened to say: "I should really feel proud to know that any word of _mine_ suggested your present course, Mr. Nelson Haley. Why! what a fine thing that would be." "What a fine thing _what_ would be?" he demanded. "To think that I could really influence an educated and clever young man like you to do something very much worth while in the world. Nelson, you are flattering me." "Honest to goodness--it's so," he said, looking at her with a rather wry smile. "And I'm not at all sure that I thank you for it." "Why not?" "See what you've got me into?" he complained. "I've got a whole bunch of extra work because of the school building, and in the end the old Elder and his friends may discharge me!" "But you've brought about the building of a new school, and Poketown ought always to thank you." "Likely. And they'll build a monument to me to stand at the head of High Street, eh?" and he laughed. "I do not care," said Janice, seriously, and looking up at him with pride. "_I_ shall thank you. And I shall never forget that you said it was _my_ little influence that made you do it." "Your _little_ influence----" But she hastened to add: "It's a really great thing for me to think of. And how proud and glad I'll be by and by--years and years from now, I mean--when you accomplish some great thing and I can think that it was because of what _I_ said that you first began to use your influence for good among these people----"