"
"Poor fellow! They'd better leave him to his studies and his students. He
has his own way to make, I presume, and will need all his energies to get
ahead. For, as some one has said, 'There are no tea-houses on the road to
Parnassus.' Neither do tea-fights boost a man toward the Porch or Academe."
"He's going in for teas?"
"I won't say that. But it was at a tea that I met him. A trigonometry tea
at little Mrs. Ryder's."
"You've seen him then. You have the advantage of me. What's he like?"
"Oh, he has points in his favor. He has looks; a trim figure, even if
spare; well-squared shoulders; and manners with a breezy, original tang.
The kind of young fellow that people are likely enough to like."
"What kind of manners did he have for you?"
"Well, there you rather get me. He called me 'sir,' with a touch of
deference; yet somehow I felt as if I were standing too close to an
electric fan."
"Yes, even when they indulge a show of deference, they contrive to blow our
gray hairs about our wrinkled temples."
"Don't talk about gray hairs. You have none; and mine are not always seen
at first glance.
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