"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.