next. Then came Runge and Blomberg as before. For a
day or two Keith swung violently between fits of rebellion and deep
depression. It seemed almost incredible that he could have received the
highest prize bestowed on any pupil in the school.

Then the routine of instruction and study seized him. New text-books
were acquired, not without some grumbling on his father's part. New
interests were stirring and, as usual, cleverly nursed by Dally. Above
all, the magnetic power of the teacher asserted itself once more, until
Keith felt that the only thing really worth while in life was to
please him.

Algebra was one of the new subjects, and the use of letters instead of
figures amused Keith for a while. But it took no serious hold on his
mind. The whole field of mathematics left him strangely uninterested
although he was good at arithmetic. He thought the problems of Euclid
stupid. Once he had learned how to prove a theorem, it seemed so
ridiculously self-evident that he wondered why anybody should bother his
brain about it. There were other boys who could figure out the
demonstrations in advance without looking at the book. Keith tried it
once or twice, but failed miserably and gave it up as a worthless and
thankless job. Apparently his brain did not work in that way. It had to
touch real life to be at its best. History and geography were his
favourite subjects, and in those he led the class. This was openly
admitted by Dally himself.

Literature was another new subject. They read and analysed and
criticized classical Swedish poetry--Tegner and Runeberg and Geijer.
Most of the poems chosen for the purpose were historical and took their
themes from the old viking days or from the glorious centuries of
Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII, when Sweden so nearly rose to be a
great power. Keith liked to take certain sonorous passages into his
mouth. There was a satisfying fullness and richness about them that
seemed somehow to enhance his own feeling of self-importance. Their
rhythm also pleased him and became a sort of substitute for the singing
of which he was incapable. Chiefly, however, it was the stories told by
the poems that interested him, and on the whole he did not think much of
poetry. But this opinion he never dared to put into words. To do so in
the face of Dally's clearly manifested reverence would have been like
openly confessing a particularly degrading form of inferiority.

Nor did it seem to matter so very mu