"Ah, they're all right, Jerry," I said with some magnificence, "if they do their duty. Some are much better than others. Now, Miss Redwood, for instance, your governess. She was kind, willing and affectionate." "Oh, yes," he said, "she was all right, but she wasn't like a man." I had him safe again. Physical strength and courage at this time were his fetish. But he was still thoughtful. "Sometimes I think, Roger" (he called me Roger now, for after all I was more like an elder brother than a father to him), "sometimes I think that things are too easy for me; that I ought to be out doing my share in the work of the world." "Oh, that will come in time. If you think things are too easy, I might manage to make them a little harder." He laughed affectionately and clapped me on the shoulder. "Oh, no, you don't, old Dry-as-dust. Not books. That isn't what I meant. I mean life, struggles against odds. I've just been wondering what chance I'd have to get, along by myself, without a lot of people waiting on me." "I've tried to show you, Jerry. You can go into the woods with a gun and an ax and exist in comfort." "Yes, but the world isn't all woods; and axes and guns aren't the only weapons." "But the principle is the same." He flashed a bright glance at me. "Flynn told me yesterday that I could make good in the prize ring if I'd let him take me in hand." (The deuce he had! Flynn would lose his engagement as a boxing teacher if he didn't heed my warnings better.) "The prize ring is not what you're being trained for, my young friend," I said with some asperity. "What then?" he asked. "First of all I hope I'm training you to be a gentleman. And that means--" "Can't a boxer be a gentleman?" he broke in quickly. "He might be, I suppose, but he usually isn't." He was forcing me into an attitude of priggishness which I regretted. "Then why," he persisted, "are you having me taught to box?" "Chiefly to make your muscles hard, to inure you to pain, to teach you self-reliance." "But I oughtn't to learn to box then, if it's going to keep me from being a gentleman. What is a gentleman, Roger?" I tried to think of a succinct generalization and failed, falling back instinctively upon safe ground. "Christ was a gentleman, Jerry," I said quietly. "Yes," he assented soberly, "Christ. I would like to be like Christ, but I couldn't be meek, Roger, and I like to box and shoot--" "He was a man, Jerry, the most courageous the world has ever known. He was even not afraid to die for an ideal. He was meek, but He was not afraid to drive the money changers from the temple." "Yes, that was good. He was strong and gentle, too. He was wonderful."