"
"Mr. Jimmy, my company is nearly out of sight--if you can get along this
way through simple and quadratic equations by our meeting, your chance
will not be so bad--good morning, sir."
But our man of "letters" quit cyphering the new way, and returned to
plain figures long before reaching equations; and so he could not become
our professor. Yet anxious to do us all the good in his power, after our
college opened, he waited on me, a leading trustee, with a proposal to
board our students, and authorized me to publish--"as how Mr. James
Jimmy will take strange students--students not belonging to
Woodville--to board, at one dollar a week, and find everything, washing
included, and will black their _shoes_ three times a week to _boot_,
and--_give them their dog-wood and cherry-bitters every morning into the
bargain!_"
The most extraordinary candidate, however, was Mr. Solomon Rapid. He was
now somewhat advanced into the shaving age, and was ready to assume
offices the most opposite in character; although justice compels us to
say Mr. Rapid was as fit for one thing as another. Deeming it waste of
time to prepare for any station till he was certain of obtaining it, he
wisely demanded the place first, and then set to work to become
qualified for its duties, being, I suspect, the very man, or some
relation of his, who is recorded as not knowing whether he could read
Greek, as he had never tried.
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