isited."

"He's a native product," said the colonel, "but a wonder all the same.
He's a Brown Mouse, you know."

"A--a--?" Doctor Brathwayt was plainly astonished. And so the colonel was
allowed to tell again the story of the Darbishire brown mice, and why he
called Jim Irwin one. Doctor Brathwayt said it was an interesting
Mendelian explanation of the appearance of such a character as Jim. "And
if you are right, Colonel, you'll lose him one of these days. You can't
expect to retain a Caesar, a Napoleon, or a Lincoln in a rural school, can
you?"

"I don't know about that," said the colonel. "The great opportunity for
such a Brown Mouse may be in this very school, right now. He'd have as big
an army right here as Socrates ever had. The Brown Mouse is the only judge
of his own proper place."

"I think," said Mrs. Brathwayt, as they motored back to the school, "that
your country schoolmaster is rather terrible. The way he crushed that Mr.
Carmichael was positively merciless. Did he know how cruel he was?"

"I think not," said Jennie. "It was the truth that crushed Mr.
Carmichael."

"But that vote of thanks," said Mrs. Brathwayt. "Surely that was the
bitterest irony."

"I wonder if it was," said Jennie. "No, I am sure it wasn't. He wanted to
leave the children thinking as well as possible of their victim, and
especially of Mr. Bonner; and there was really something in Mr.
Carmichael's talk which could be praised. I have known Jim Irwin since we
were both children, and I feel sure that if he had had any idea that his
treatment of this man had been unnecessarily cruel, it would have given
him a lot of pain."

"My dear," said Mrs. Brathwayt, "I think you are to be congratulated for
having known for a long time a genius."

"Thank you," said Jennie. And Mrs. Brathwayt gave her a glance which
brought to her cheek another blush; but of a different sort from the one
provoked by the uproar in the Woodruff school.

There could be no doubt now that Jim was thoroughly wonderful--nor that
she, the county superintendent, was quite as thoroughly a little fool. She
to be put in authority over him! It was too absurd for laughter.
Fortunately, she hadn't hindered him much--but who was to be thanked for
that? Was it owing to any wisdom of hers? Well, she had decided in his
favor, in those first proceedings to revoke his certificate. Perhaps that
was as good a thing to remember as was to be found in the record.

CHAPTER XXI