“Oh, it's all right. Old woman talk to you about Jeff's going to college? I thought so. Wants to make another Dan'el Webster of him. Guess she can's far forth as Dan'el's graduatin' went.” Westover tried to remember how this had been with the statesman, but could not. Whitwell added, with intensifying irony so of look and tone: “Guess the second Dan'el won't have a chance to tear his degree up; guess he wouldn't ever b'en ready to try for it if it had depended on him. They don't keep any record at Harvard, do they, of the way fellows are prepared for their preliminary examinations?” “I don't quite know what you mean,” said Westover. “Oh, nothin'. You get a chance some time to ask Jeff who done most of his studyin' for him at the Academy.” This hint was not so darkling but Westover could understand that Whitwell attributed Jeff's scholarship to the help of Cynthia, but he would not press him to an open assertion of the fact. There was something painful in it to him; it had the pathos which perhaps most of the success in the world would reveal if we could penetrate its outside. He was silent, and Whitwell left the point. “Well,” he concluded, “what's goin' on in them old European countries?” “Oh, the old thing,” said Westover. “But I can't speak for any except France, very well.” “What's their republic like, over there? Ours? See anything of it, how it works?” “Well, you know,” said Westover, “I was working so hard myself all the time--” “Good!” Whitwell slapped his leg. Westover saw that he had on long India-rubber boots, which came up to his knees, and he gave a wayward thought to the misery they would be on an August day to another man; but Whitwell was probably insensible to any discomfort from them. “When a man's mindin' his own business any government's good, I guess. But I should like to prowl round some them places where they had the worst scenes of the Revolution, Ever been in the Place de la Concorde?” Whitwell gave it the full English pronunciation. “I passed through it nearly every day.” “I want to know! And that column that they, pulled down in the Commune that had that little Boney on it--see that?” “In the Place Vendome?” “Yes, Plass Vonndome.” “Oh yes. You wouldn't know it had ever been down.” “Nor the things it stood for?” “As to that, I can't be so sure.” “Well, it's funny,” said the philosopher, “how the world seems to always come out at the same hole it went in at!” He paused, with his mouth open, as if to let the notion have full effect with Westover. The painter said: “And you're still in the old place, Mr. Whitwell?” “Yes, I like my own house. They've wanted me to come up here often enough, but I'm satisfied where I am. It's quiet down there, and, when I get through for the day, I can read. And I like to keep my family together. Cynthy and Frank always sleep at home, and Jombateeste eats with me. You remember Jombateeste?” Westover had to say that he did not.