o_.
This motion, after the striking out of the words _de novo_ and the
insertion of _ab initio_, was finally carried, after which the faculty
sank back completely exhausted into its chair, the need of afternoon
tea and toast stamped on every face.

And it was at this moment that President Boomer, who understood
faculties as few men have done, quietly entered the room, laid his silk
hat on a volume of Demosthenes, and proposed the vote of a degree of
Doctor of Letters for Edward Tomlinson. He said that there was no need
to remind the faculty of Tomlinson's services to the nation; they knew
them. Of the members of the faculty, indeed, some thought that he meant
the Tomlinson who wrote the famous monologue on the Iota Subscript,
while others supposed that he referred to the celebrated philosopher
Tomlinson, whose new book on the Indivisibility of the Inseparable was
just then maddening the entire world. In any case, they voted the
degree without a word, still faint with exhaustion.

* * * * *

But while the university was conferring on Tomlinson the degree of
Doctor of Letters, all over the City in business circles they were
conferring on him far other titles. "Idiot," "Scoundrel," "Swindler,"
were the least of them. Every stock and share with which his name was
known to be connected was coming down with a run, wiping out the
accumulated profits of the Wizard at the rate of a thousand dollars a
minute.

They not only questioned his honesty, but they went further and
questioned his business capacity.

"The man," said Mr. Lucullus Fyshe, sitting in the Mausoleum Club and
breathing freely at last after having disposed of all his holdings in
the Erie Auriferous, "is an ignoramus. I asked him only the other day,
quite casually, a perfectly simple business question. I said to him.
'T.C. Bonds have risen twenty-two and a half in a week. You know and I
know that they are only collateral trust, and that the stock underneath
never could and never would earn a par dividend. Now,' I said, for I
wanted to test the fellow, 'tell me what that means?' Would you believe
me, he looked me right in the face in that stupid way of his, and he
said, 'I don't know!'"

"He said he didn't know!" repeated the listener contemptuously; "the
man is a damn fool!"

* * * * *

The reason of all this was that the results of the researches of the
professor of geology were being whispered among the directora