ent whirling again, "Just wait till I see the Turk!"

CHAPTER XII

A notice from the president's office, commanding Carl's instant
presence, was in his post-office box. He slouched into the
waiting-room of the offices of the president and dean. He was an
incarnate desire to say exactly what he thought to the round, woolly
President Wood.

Plain Albert Smith was leaving the waiting-room. He seized Carl's hand
with his plowman's paw, and, "Good-by, boy," he growled. There was
nothing gallant about his appearance--his blue-flannel shirt dusty
with white fuzz, his wrinkled brick-red neck, the oyster-like ear at
which he kept fumbling with a seamy finger-nail of his left hand. But
Carl's salute was a salute to the new king.

"How d'you mean 'good-by,' Al?"

"I've just resigned from Plato, Carl."

"How'd you happen to do that? Did they summon you here?"

"No. Just resigned," said Plain Smith. "One time when I was
school-teaching I had a set-to with a school committee of farmers
about teaching the kids a little botany. They said the three R's were
enough. I won out, but I swore I'd stand up for any teacher that tried
to be honest the way he seen it. I don't agree with Frazer about these
socialists and all--fellow that's worked at the plow like I have knows
a man wants to get ahead for his woman and himself, first of all, and
let the walking-delegates go to work, too. But I think he's honest,
all right, and, well, I stood up, and that means losing my
scholarship. They won't try to fire me. Guess I'll mosey on to the U.
of M. Can't probably live there as cheap as here, but a cousin of mine
owns a big shoe-store and maybe I can get a job with him.... Boy, you
were plucky to get up.... Glad we've got each other, finally. I feel
as though you'd freed me from something. God bless you."

To the dean's assistant, in the waiting-room, Carl grandly stated:
"Ericson, 1908. I'm to see the president."

"It's been arranged you're to see the dean instead. Sit down. Dean's
engaged just now."

Carl was kept waiting for a half-hour. He did not like the
transference to the dean, who was no anxious old lamb like S. Alcott
Wood, but a young collegiate climber, with a clipped mustache, a gold
eye-glass chain over one ear, a curt voice, many facts, a spurious
appreciation of music, and no mellowness. He was a graduate of the
University of Chicago, and aggressively proud of it. He had "earned
his way through college," which all t