Always pursuing, always doing, never enjoying. A true American cannot enjoy. He would build a steam saw mill in Arcadia, and dam up the four rivers of Paradise for cotton factories."

"But, Chester," said Wren, "that is not at all like Morton; you know he hates utilitarianism."

"Yes, but still he cannot rest. He would not build saw mills and dams; but he would be sure to fire his rifle at some of Adam's live stock, and set all Eden by the ears. Come, Morton, I have told the company my plans. Let us hear what yours are."

"My guardian wishes me to enter the law school."

"You are twenty-one now," said Vinal, "and can do as you please."

Vinal was a very tall and slender young man, with a strongly marked face, though thin and pale; a grave, thoughtful eye, and compressed lips, expressing a kind of nervous self-control. His dress was very elaborate and scrupulous, though without the smallest trace of foppery. He was less popular in the class than Morton, but had the reputation of greater talents. This he owed, perhaps, to his habitual reserve; for every one thought that he understood Morton thoroughly, while few pretended to fathom the silent and self-contained Vinal.

"I should like well enough to study law," was Morton's non-committal answer.

"I thought, Morton, that you were more of a philosopher. Here you are, a young fellow, full of blood, and worth half a million, and yet you speak of buckling down to the law. That is all well enough for poor dogs like me, who go into the mill from necessity. We drudge on for twenty years or more, till we have scraped together a competency, or something better, perhaps, and then we find that we have forgotten how to enjoy it. We have grown so used to harness that we are good for nothing out of it, and sacrifice body and soul to our profession. You have reached already the point that we are straining for. The world is all before you, man; launch out and enjoy yourself."

"Didn't you just say," asked Rosny, "that Morton couldn't rest, if he tried?"

"I said he could not rest, but I did not say he could not enjoy himself. Look at him: his cheek is ruddier and browner than any of us. Nobody would believe that a fellow like that was not made to enjoy life. I know Morton. He could roam from blossom to blossom, as Chester says, with as good a will as any body. He has an eye for the fair sex, correct as he is at present. He knows a pretty face from a plain one. The devil will catch him yet with a black eye and a rosy cheek."

"Then," said Morton, "he will show his good opinion of my taste."

Rosny, who had his own reasons for disliking Vinal, here broke in without ceremony,—

"Be gad, Vinal, he will bait his hook differently when he fishes for you."

"How will that be, Dick?" said Meredith.

"With a five dollar bank note, and a lying puff in a newspaper; and Vinal will jump at it like a mackerel at a red rag."

Vinal laughed, but with a bad grace.

"Riches and fame!" said Chester, anxious to smooth away all traces of irritation—"riches and fame! I call those legitimate objects of pursuit; and the black eye is positively praiseworthy. Come, Morton, let us hear your plan. You have not told it yet."

"I defer to Rosny—he is my senior. Dick, some ten or twelve years from this, I suppose I shall vote against you for the presidency."

"Thank you. By that time you will have no whig party left to vote with. The democrats will have it all their own way."

"I have often wondered what could have induced a driving man of the world like you to come to college at all. You have been here more than a year; and in the same time, with your previous knowledge, you might have learned as much any where else at half the cost. You are not the fellow to regard a degree of A. M. with superstitious veneration."

"You are right there, colonel. I am of no kith nor kin to some of your New England old fogies, who would give their souls for a D. D. or an LL. D.—and get it, too, though they know no more Greek or Hebrew than I know of Choctaw, and can barely manage to stumble along through the Latin Testament. What's a piece of sheep's skin to me? Humbug is the current coin all the world over, and just as much in this free and enlightened country as any where else. I have schemes on foot,—not political,—no matter what they are,—out in the western country; and I happen to know that a degree from Harvard University is the medicine that suits my case; with that for my credentials, I shall carry it over all competitors. Yes, boys, gammon is the word; and the man who would rise in the world must use the stepping stones."

"You're a victim of the national disease, Rosny," said Chester. "Rising in the world!—that's the idea that ruins us. It's that that makes us lean, starveling, nervous, restless, dyspeptic, hypochondriac,—the most prosperous and most uncomfortable people on earth. Sit down, man, and take your ease. What garden will thrive if every plant in it must be dug up every day, and set out in a better place?"

"Ah, that's good doctrine for you. You have got nothing to gain, and a good deal to lose. Stand up for the status quo, old boy; I would, in your place. Look at me, though. I was cut adrift at fourteen,—parents dead,—not a cent in my pocket,—and since then I have tumbled along through the world as I could. You can't kill me. I have more lives than a cat. I have been thrown on my back a dozen times; but the harder I was flung down, the higher I bounced up again. Why, I have known the time when I was glad to earn a shilling by shovelling snow off a sidewalk. I have tried my hand at every thing,—printer's work, lecturing, politics, editing, keeping school,—and do you suppose I shall be content to rest in the mud all my days? Not a bit of it. I know my cue better. The time will come when you'll see me shooting up like a rocket."

Here a broad glare against the window interrupted him, and, looking out, his auditors saw a bonfire blazing with peculiar splendor under the windows of the chamber where the Faculty were at that moment in solemn session. Three proctors and a tutor were hastening towards the scene of outrage, when a stentorian voice from the adjacent darkness roared forth a warning that there was a canister of gunpowder in the fire expected every moment to explode. The prudent officers therefore kept their distance, busying themselves with noting down the names of several innocent spectators, while the bonfire subsided to a natural death, the gunpowder hoax having perfectly succeeded.

Mr. Wren's guests resumed their seats, mingling with graver matters the usual badinage of a college gathering; and when at length they separated, only a lonely light or two glimmered from among the many windows of the academic barracks which overlook the college green.

CHAPTER VI.

Mr. Erastus Flintlock sat at his counting room, in his old leather-bottomed arm chair. Vassall Morton, his newly emancipated ward, just twenty-one, stood before him, the undisputed master of his father's ample wealth.

"What, no profession, Mr. Morton? None whatever, sir?"

"No, sir, none whatever."

The old man's leathery countenance expressed mingled wrath and concern.

Flintlock was a stanch old New Englander, boasting himself a true descendant of the Puritans, whose religious tenets he inherited, along with most of their faults, and not a few of their virtues. He was narrow as a vinegar cruet, and just in all his dealings. There were three subjects on which he could converse with more or less