The homiletic magazines omitted idealism and
imagination; but perhaps those qualities are so common in what some
people are pleased to call our humdrum modern business life that they
were taken for granted. If a young man could not succeed in this world,
something was wrong with him. Can Bob be blamed that in this baffling
and unsuspected incapacity he found a great humility of spirit? In his
fashion he began to remember trifling significances which at the time
had meant little to him. Thus, a girl had once told him, half seriously:
"Yes, you're a nice boy, just as everybody tells you; a nice, big,
blundering, stupid, Newfoundland-dog boy."
He had laughed good-humouredly, and had forgotten. Now he caught at one
word of it. That might explain it; he was just plain stupid! And stupid
boys either played polo or drove fancy horses or ran yachts--or occupied
ornamental--too ornamental--desks for an hour or so a day. Bob
remembered how, as a small boy, he used to hold the ends of the reins
under the delighted belief that he was driving his father's spirited
pair.
"I've outgrown holding the reins, thank you," he said aloud in disgust.
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