He brought it to bear on everything.

Every time he went to the opera he would come away enthusiastic, saying, "By Jove, isn't it simply splendid! Of course I haven't the ear to appreciate it--I'm not musical, you know--but even with the little that I know, it's great; it absolutely puts me to sleep." And of each new novel that he bought he said, "It's a perfectly wonderful book! Of course I haven't the head to understand it, so I didn't finish it, but it's simply thrilling." Similarly with painting, "It's one of the most marvellous pictures I ever saw," he would say.

"Of course I've no eye for pictures, and I couldn't see anything in it, but it's wonderful!" The career of Mr.Spillikins up to the point of which we are speaking had hitherto not been very satisfactory, or at least not from the point of view of Mr.Boulder, who was his uncle and trustee.

Mr.Boulder's first idea had been to have Mr.Spillikins attend the university.

Dr.
Boomer, the president, had done his best to spread abroad the idea that a university education was perfectly suitable even for the rich; that it didn't follow that because a man was a university graduate he need either work or pursue his studies any further; that what the university aimed to do was merely to put a certain stamp upon a man.