The boy bore again his fearful eyes to the faded yellow page. Slowly he spelt out the words and represented them to his mind. Then he paused and gathered himself to his full height. His chin was upheld, his hands were clenched, his eyes were closed, his slow-drawn breaths were audible. Quite suddenly the ineffable look of his father’s appeared in his face. “Yes, yes, yes, I understand, I understand!” he muttered to himself. “My father,” he broke out with a wild little cry, “these must be the words of the first author in the world!” He flung his arms about his father’s neck. “How shall I ever requite thee, my father,” he cried, “for teaching me to read in a book such as this!” “Is it not meet, O Achilles,” said his father, “that thou shouldst read in the book that the ages have wrought for their child?” Like those of one entranced, the eyes of the boy sought the yellow page again and again. He spelt out the antique words of all that was there written, and pondered them with his finger raised to his lips. He then saluted the parchment devoutly, and again he knelt. “I am indeed Achilles,” he cried; “the magic page of the gods is spread before me!” “Wilt thou forswear thy birthright again, O Achilles?” said his father, whose eyes were quick with many tender, yet grave, questionings. “Never, never, O my father,” cried the boy, “lest it should not be given to me to read in the Book of the Ages again!” XX “Luney, my son,” said Mr. James Dodson one afternoon, “young Davis’s days are numbered. This morning Octavius found him smoking in his room.” Notwithstanding the manner in which Mr. Dodson imparted this item of news, it failed to promote the curiosity of which it was undoubtedly worthy. “Yes, Luney,” Mr. Dodson proceeded, “young Davis has numbered his days. He’ll come down from up-stairs. He is not geared up to a position of that kind. He hasn’t got the--the intellectual quality. You can get anything by a fluke; but you can keep nothing without you’ve got this.” Mr. Dodson laid a finger on the centre of his forehead with a significance that was almost sinister. “And whom do you suppose, Luney,” Mr. Dodson continued, “will succeed that young upstart when he comes down from up-stairs? Give a guess, my son.” William Jordan, Junior, did not accept his mentor’s cordial invitation, for the sufficient reason that the point involved was too abstruse for his knowledge of the practical sciences. “Between you and me and the paste-pot, my worthy lunatic,” said Mr. Dodson, “there is only one candidate in the running at present. And he is the deadest of dead certainties. And the name of that dead certainty, my son, is Matthew Arnold Dodson, known familiarly out of office hours as Jimmy.” Even this announcement, although it exacted William Jordan, Junior’s courteous attention, as every announcement did, failed to stimulate his feeble faculties to divine all that it implied.