"Oh, don't let that worry you, Bill. It'll come out all right. I'd be willing to have almost any sort of name if it would influence that girl to talk in my favor as she did in yours. I don't know what to think; somehow I can't find out her opinion of me. I slily spoke about that fellow, Dan Stuart, but she didn't say a word. Confound it, Bill, can't a woman see that she's got a fellow on the gridiron? They can't even bear to see a hog suffer, but they can smile and look unconcerned while a man is writhing over the coals. I don't understand it." "Nor do I, Alf, but I've been over the coals--I mean that I can well imagine what it is to be there." He lay down, and with his head far back on the pillow, looked upward as if with his gaze he would bore through the roof and reach the stars. He was silent for a long time, but when I had blown out the light and had gone to bed, thinking that he was asleep, I heard him muttering. "Talking to me, Alf?" He turned over with a sigh and answered: "No, not particularly. I was just wondering whether a man ought to try to outlive a disappointment in love or kill himself and end the matter. We are told that God is love, and if God is denied to a man, what's the use of trying to struggle on? I suppose the advantage of knowledge is that it enables a man to settle such questions at once, but as I am not learned, having grabbed but a little here and there, I have to worry along with a thing that another man might dismiss at once. What's your idea, Bill?" "My idea is that a man ought never to give up; but, of course, there are times when he is so completely beaten that to fight longer is worse than useless. But learning cannot settle questions wherein the heart is involved. The philosopher may kill himself in despair, while the ignorant man may continue to fight and may finally win. The other day you spoke of something that was in your favor--something that has to do with your sister's education. Would you think it impertinent if I ask you what that something is?" "No, I'd not think that," he answered. I had risen up in bed and was straining my eyes, trying to find his face, to study his expression, but darkness lay between us. "Not impertinent in the least, but I can't tell you just now. After a while, if you stay here long enough, you'll know all about it. Bill, if that young Aimes comes to school and begins any of his pranks, take him down and I'll stand by you, and people that know me well will tell you that I mean what I say. The old man has never been whipped yet, I mean my father, and nobody ever saw his son knock under." CHAPTER VII.