But these observations and reflections occupied a very short time, and Captain Asher walked quickly to meet his visitor.  As he stepped out of the garden-gate he was disappointed again.  The young man’s trousers were turned up above his shoes.  The weather was not wet, there was no mud, and if Dick Lancaster’s son had not bought a pair of ready-made trousers that were too long for him, why should he turn them up in that ridiculous way?

In spite of these first impressions, the captain gave his old friend’s son a hearty welcome, and took him into the house.  After dinner he subjected the young man to a crucial test; he asked him if he smoked.  If the visitor had answered in the negative he would have dropped still further in the captain’s estimation.  It was not that the captain had any theories in regard to the sanitary advantages or disadvantages of tobacco; he simply remembered that nearly all the rascals with whom he had been acquainted had been eager to declare that they never used tobacco in any form, and that nearly all the good fellows he had known enjoyed their pipes.  In fact, he could not see how good fellowship could be maintained without good talk and good tobacco, so he waited with an anxious interest for his guest’s answer.

“Oh, yes,” said he, “I am fond of a smoke, especially in company,” and so, having risen several inches in the good opinion of his host, he followed him to the little arbor in the garden.

“Now, then,” said Captain Asher, when his pipe was alight, “you have told me a great deal about your father, now tell me something about yourself.  I do not even know what your business is.”

“I am Assistant Professor of Theoretical Mathematics in Sutton College,” answered the young man.

Captain Asher put down his pipe and gazed at his visitor across the arbor.  This answer was so different from anything he had expected that for the moment he could not express his astonishment, and was obliged to content himself with asking where Sutton College was.

“It is what they call a fresh-water college,” replied the young man, “and I do not wonder that you do not know where it is.  It is near our town.  I graduated there and received my present appointment about three years ago.  I was then twenty-seven.”

“Your father was good at mathematics,” said Captain Asher.  “He was a great hand at calculations, but he went in for practise, as I did, and not for theories.  I suppose there are other professors who teach regular working mathematics.”

“Oh, yes,” replied the young man, with a smile, “there is the Professor of Applied Mathematics, but of course the thorough student wants to understand the theories on which his practise is to be based.”

“I do not see why he should,” replied the other.  “If a good ship is launched for me, I don’t care anything about the stocks she slides off of.”

“Perhaps not,” said Lancaster, “but somebody has to think about them.”