Dick did not wait for their acquiescence, but went on as from a matter definitely settled.
How about the horses down at Menlo? never mind, Ill look them over and decide what to keep. Mrs. Summerstone will stay on here in charge of the house, because Ive got too much work mapped out for myself already. I promise you you wont regret giving me a free hand with my directly personal affairs. And now, if you want to hear about the last three years, Ill spin the yarn for you[104].
Dick Forrest had been right when he told his guardians that his mind was acid and would bite into the books. Never was there such an education, and he directed it himself but not without advice. He had learned the trick of hiring brains from his father and from John Chisum of the Jingle-bob. He had learned to sit silent and to think while cow men talked long about the campfire and the chuck wagon. And, by virtue of name and place, he sought and obtained interviews with professors and college presidents and practical men of affairs; and he listened to their talk through many hours, scarcely speaking, rarely asking a question, merely listening to the best they had to offer, content to receive from several such hours one idea, one fact, that would help him to decide what sort of an education he would go in for and how.
Then came the engaging of coaches. Never was there such an engaging and discharging, such a hiring and firing[105]. He was not frugal in the matter. For one that he retained a month, or three months, he discharged a dozen on the first day, or the first week. And invariably he paid such dischargees a full month although their attempts to teach him might not have consumed an hour. He did such things fairly and grandly, because he could afford to be fair and grand.
He, who had eaten the leavings from firemens pails in round-houses and scoffed mulligan-stews at water-tanks, had learned thoroughly the worth of money. He bought the best with the sure knowledge that it was the cheapest. A year of high school physics and a year of high school chemistry were necessary to enter the university. When he had crammed his algebra and geometry, he sought out the heads of the physics and chemistry departments in the University of California. Professor Carey laughed at him at the first.
My dear boy, Professor Carey began.
Dick waited patiently till he was through. Then Dick began, and concluded.
Im not a fool, Professor Carey. High school and academy students are children. They dont know the world. They dont know what they want, or why they want what is ladled out to them[106]. I know the world. I know what I want and why I want it. They do physics for an hour, twice a week, for two terms, which, with two vacations, occupy one year. You are the top teacher on the Pacific Coast in physics. The college year is just ending. In the first week of your vacation, giving every minute of your time to me, I can get the years physics. What is that week worth to you?
You couldnt buy it for a thousand dollars, Professor Carey rejoined, thinking he had settled the matter.
I know what your salary is Dick began.
What is it? Professor Carey demanded sharply.
Its not a thousand a week, Dick retorted as sharply. Its not five hundred a week, nor two-fifty a week He held up his hand to stall off interruption. Youve just told me I couldnt buy a week of your time for a thousand dollars. Im not going to. But I am going to buy that week for two thousand. Heavens! Ive only got so many years to live
And you can buy years? Professor Carey queried slyly.
Sure. Thats why Im here. I buy three years in one, and the week from you is part of the deal.
But I have not accepted, Professor Carey laughed.
If the sum is not sufficient, Dick said stiffly, why name the sum you consider fair[107].
And Professor Carey surrendered. So did Professor Barsdale, head of the department of chemistry.
Already had Dick taken his coaches in mathematics duck hunting for weeks in the sloughs of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin. After his bout with physics and chemistry he took his two coaches in literature and history into the Curry County hunting region of southwestern Oregon. He had learned the trick from his father, and he worked, and played, lived in the open air, and did three conventional years of adolescent education in one year without straining himself. He fished, hunted, swam, exercised, and equipped himself for the university at the same time. And he made no mistake. He knew that he did it because his fathers twenty millions had invested him with mastery. Money was a tool. He did not over-rate it, nor under-rate it. He used it to buy what he wanted.
The weirdest form of dissipation I ever heard, said Mr. Crockett, holding up Dicks account for the year. Sixteen thousand for education, all itemized, including railroad fares, porters tips, and shot-gun cartridges for his teachers.
He passed the examinations just the same, quoth Mr. Slocum.
And in a year, growled Mr. Davidson. My daughters boy entered Belmont at the same time, and, if hes lucky, it will be two years yet before he enters the university.
Well, all Ive got to say, proclaimed Mr. Crockett, is that from now on what that boy says in the matter of spending his money goes.
And now Ill have a snap, Dick told his guardians. Here I am, neck and neck again[108], and years ahead of them in knowledge of the world. Why, I know things, good and bad, big and little, about men and women and life that sometimes I almost doubt myself that theyre true. But I know them.
From now on, Im not going to rush. Ive caught up, and Im going through regular. All I have to do is to keep the speed of the classes, and Ill be graduated when Im twenty-one. From now on Ill need less money for education no more coaches, you know and more money for a good time.
Mr. Davidson was suspicious.
What do you mean by a good time?
Oh, Im going in for the frats, for football, hold my own, you know and Im interested in gasoline engines. Im going to build the first ocean-going gasoline yacht in the world
Youll blow yourself up, Mr. Crockett demurred. Its a fool notion all these cranks are rushing into over gasoline.
Ill make myself safe, Dick answered, and that means experimenting, and it means money, so keep me a good drawing account same old way all four of us can draw.
Chapter VI
Dick Forrest proved himself no prodigy at the university, save that he cut more lectures[109] the first year than any other student. The reason for this was that he did not need the lectures he cut, and he knew it. His coaches, while preparing him for the entrance examinations, had carried him nearly through the first college year. Incidentally, he made the Freshman team, a very scrub team, that was beaten by every high school and academy it played against.
But Dick did put in work that nobody saw. His collateral reading was wide and deep, and when he went on his first summer cruise in the ocean-going gasoline yacht he had built no gay young crowd accompanied him. Instead, his guests, with their families, were professors of literature, history, jurisprudence, and philosophy. It was long remembered in the university as the high-brow cruise[110]. The professors, on their return, reported a most enjoyable time. Dick returned with a greater comprehension of the general fields of the particular professors than he could have gained in years at their class-lectures. And time thus gained, enabled him to continue to cut lectures and to devote more time to laboratory work.