“Look here, Lester!” she broke out. “Why couldn’t you--I don’t believe but what you could go and be a professor somewhere in a University or a High School. Professors don’t have to walk around. And you’ve always set such store by poetry and books and everything. There can’t be anybody who’s more....” Lester broke in with a laugh at her absurdity. “Why, you dear old girl, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’d make a mess of what they want in a school just as much as at the store. What makes you think colleges want teachers who love literature? They want somebody who can make young people sit still and listen whether they feel like it or not. They want somebody who can ‘keep order’ in a class room and drill students on dates so they can pass examinations. I couldn’t do that! And I’d loathe forcing literature down the throats of boys and girls who didn’t want it as I’d loathe selling things to people who didn’t need them. I’d be just a dead loss at it the way I always am.” Seeing that she did not follow this, he added concretely, “Besides I could no more get a job without all the right certificates than I could set up shop as a doctor. Nowadays colleges want you to be a Ph.D. And there isn’t a cross-roads High School that’d look at a man who had only had three years in a State University fifteen years ago and had been making a failure of keeping accounts in a department store ever since.” Mattie recognized the irrefutable nature of all this. “Yes, I see,” she said sadly. “Isn’t Mattie the ignorant, impractical old infant!” thought Lester. She got up now, with a long breath, and silently took herself off. * * * * * Although it was long past time to start supper, she did not go home. She went straight down to Willing’s and into the Cloak-and-Suits. Eva was busy with customers as usual. “Everybody wants Eva to wait on them,” thought Mattie, sitting down heavily. Her eyes were fixed on Evangeline. What a splendid woman she was, and, now she had some money to spend on her clothes, what a stylish-looking woman! There wasn’t anybody in town could hold a candle to her. Mattie made these reflections automatically. These were always the first thoughts which came to her when she saw Eva.