“For the same reason that I gave you in October. We are going to be drawn into the war, and I’m too old to stand the strain. I served in one war, but you can’t expect a man to pump up the proper amount of hatred at sixty-nine.” “I tell you we are not going to be drawn in.” “Charlie, did my boy’s valedictory make so little impression on you?” “Why, I don’t exactly form my political judgments by the opinions of valedictorians.” “But that wrath—Horatio’s wrath over the sunken Lusitania—might not that be an index to the American heart?” “I suppose so. It is barely possible. I’m wondering whether your other valedictorian will follow the same line tonight.” “Charlie, I have no more notion of what Jean will say tonight than if she were not my child.” “Doctor, why didn’t you marry till forty-six?” “Charlie, I don’t know much science since Aristotle, but that excellent authority on fish assures us that every event has at least four causes.” “Doctor, you can’t throw dust in my eyes by quoting your classics. I’m sure the cause was poverty, and I’m going to say as much to Elbridge Gary and ask him to pension you.” “Charlie, I forbid it. This everlasting begging from men who knew the town as boys has gone far enough. I shall manage. I have some money every year from the text-books and the Tacitus, and I have my garden, and I have the St. Mary’s river with a few fish left in it.” The president mused for a minute, while the DuPage rippled softly, and across it were heard the strains of the academy orchestra rehearsing for the last time. “You will probably live twenty years more, doctor, and those text-books may not hold out so long. But I’m powerless. It’s no use to appeal to Asher Ferry. The last time I went to him he said that he would never do anything for a college. He might, when the time came, endow a laboratory for research, but he had no use for colleges.” “What else could you expect? I never saw the man, but he is the living embodiment of an illiterate age. Now about Jean. I shall wish her to enter college next year.” “You can’t wish it more than we do. Let us have her in our own family.” “Will you accept board money?” “Not a cent. Didn’t you lend me the money that put me through?” “Did I? If so, where did I get it?” They both laughed. “Well, she shall be your guest for one year, but after that I shall insist on paying. Now let me thank you for parting with me so gracefully, and let’s go and get my Winifred and your Mary, and go and hear the wisdom of triumphant children.” The chapel bell was beginning to ring, and the two men arose. An hour or so later, after the orchestra and the smiling principal had properly introduced her, up sprang the valedictorian, Jean Winifred Rich, and thus spake Jean: