At any rate he was once placed in embarrassing circumstances.
Toward the close of the term, as Mrs.Stiles says, his trowsers became exceedingly thin at the knees, and one unlucky day, when he was incautiously bending forward, they tore half-way round the leg, exposing his bare knee.
James was very much mortified, and repaired damages as well as he could with a pin.
"I need a new suit of clothes badly," he said in the evening, "but I can't afford to buy one.

See how I have torn my trowsers." "Oh, that is easy enough to mend," said Mrs.Stiles, cheerfully.
"But I have no other pair to wear while they are being mended," said James, with a blush.
"Then you must go to bed early, and send them down by one of the boys.

I will darn the hole so that you will never know it.

You won't mind such trifles when you become President." It was a jocose remark, and the good lady little dreamed that, in after years, the young man with but one pair of pantaloons, and those more than half worn, would occupy the proud position she referred to..