The most aggravating feature of it, to the little tutor, was that they were so very self-satisfied about it all, never dreaming that there could be anyone so barbarous as not to envy their New England blood, and it was this attitude that used to make the little tutor indignant and cause him to wish he could be sarcastic, as one of his professors used to be: how he would pitch into them! But the worst of it was that he realized his diminutiveness and his boyishness; so he felt helpless and baffled, and he had to submit to the cold indifference and haughty air of superiority worn by those two young assistants not much older than himself, who graduated from such a miserable little unheard-of college. Stacy thought that if they had gone to his college they would have had some of the conceit taken out of them. He thought he might stand it all as far as he was concerned, but he felt somehow as if they were insulting his college in their treatment of himself, her representative. He blushed to think how poor a representative he was.
It was just at this point in his discouragement that he had an opportunity which he had often longed for. At last he would have a chance to show them what was in him. This would be his final stroke, he told himself, and he staked his all upon it. He was to lead the prayer-meeting. These prayer-meetings were attended by the college, the academy, and even the professors.
Like many excessively shy men, the little tutor was not abashed before a crowd when he appeared in some identity other than his own. At college he had always done well in his orations, because unconsciously he merged his own personality into that of an imaginary orator. So on this occasion he was perfectly cool; indeed, he was surprised at himself. The subject was, "Help one another." He had thought, in preparing it, that it was a singular coincidence, his having that subject. He thought he could talk to them from his heart on such a subject. And he did.
They all listened intently, and he thought they must be surprised to see how thoughtful he was, and how earnest, and what a splendid speaker he was. When he finished, he knew that he had done well.
He felt almost joyful when he returned to his room. He dreamed that night that certain men came up to him as he was walking alone, and tried to become intimate with him, as he had seen it done at college with fellows who had suddenly become prominent.