And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of an angel-light."

He turned the book down, open at this point, and resolved to memorize
those lines.

His youth and playtime had now left him for good. The time for
half-hearted or three-quarters-hearted attempts to forge ahead were
over. He had pledged his heart and shortly hoped to pledge his hand in
the service of the loveliest young lady in the world, none less. At
present he was only a young instructor; of promise, perhaps, but still
unproved. The immediate goal in his academic career was an Assistant
Professorship; and although, even under the most favourable
circumstances, it would probably be a matter of at least three years
before he got it, nevertheless he could at least make it plain that he
was indubitably on the way to it, and that (giddy thought) he was even
of the stuff that Full Professors are made on! And no time should be
lost before this were shown. Dressing feverishly, he corrected some
slightly overdue test papers; and when he appeared at breakfast his
landlady's three other guests noted the spirit in his bearing and
commented upon it when he left.

There was to be a meeting of the Freshman English Department in the
afternoon, and Tom found himself looking eagerly forward to it. He had
no idea of the business that was coming up, but he was going to be
extremely keen-eyed and watchful about it, whatever it was. The little
slump which he had allowed to creep into his work recently was over. He
wondered if any of his colleagues had noticed it, and in particular he
wondered if Professor Dawson, Head of the Department, had noticed it.

Professor Dawson was Tom's beau ideal of all that a university
instructor should be. Tom had had him when in college, had taken
everything that he taught; and he looked back upon the hours spent at
his feet as among the best of his whole life. To teach like that was to
be doing something indeed; and it was the picture of himself giving
formal lectures in the Dawsonian manner that had finally led him into
teaching. That Tom should have imitated as best he could the Dawsonian
manner and method was, therefore, inevitable, but it none the less
exposed him to the smiles of the Department. A member of it, a Professor
Furbush, found occasion to refer to the Johnsonian anecdote anent sprats
talking like whales; and, Tom hearing of it, there was brought into
being one of the enmities which add zest to collegiate existe