way through college, studies harder and more eagerly than the average student whose parents are paying his bills? It's natural. To get good, of any kind, we have to be alive to it;—a limp hand—or mental attitude—never grasps anything. Isn't it so?"
"Yes," I said.
"And there's still another point," said Uncle Rob; "if this time and work were given to all who came, without charge of any kind, then the mere curiosity-seeker, the searcher after new experiences, the chronic sponge, the something-for-nothing fellow, all of these would so fill up the time of the practitioners, that the real sufferer, the earnest seeker, and the honest investigator, would be crowded out; for there couldn't be enough practitioners found to do the work."
Uncle Rob waited for me to say something, but there wasn't anything more to say about that, and so I kept quiet. There's one good thing about me,—when I've slumped through in an argument, I don't keep on struggling and spitting up bubbles with nothing in 'em but air! I was through with the financial side of it.
I kicked the railing for a while longer, then I
