It was eight years before he got into the freshman class of the college that had been selected as the one best qualified to give him a degree, and there is no telling how long he might have remained there, faculty willing, had it not been for the interfering "mustard girl." He could throw a hammer farther and run the hundred faster than any youth in the freshman class, and he could handle an oar with the best of them, but as he had spent nearly eight years in acquiring this proficiency to the exclusion of anything else it is not surprising that he excelled in these pursuits, nor is it surprising that he possessed a decided aversion for the things that are commonly taught in college by studious-looking gentlemen who do not even belong to the athletic association and have forgotten their college yell.
George boasted, in his freshman year, that if the faculty would let him alone he could easily get through the four years without flunking a single thing in athletics.

It was during the hockey season, just after the Christmas holidays, that he married the pretty "mustard girl" and put an abrupt end to what must now be regarded as a superficial education.
He carried his athletic vigour into the brokerage offices, however.

No one could accuse him of being lazy, and no one could say that he did not make an effort.

He possessed purpose and determination after a fashion, for he was proud and resentful; but he lacked perspective, no matter which way he looked for it.

Behind him was a foggy recollection of the things he should have learned, and ahead was the dark realisation that the world is made up principally of men who cannot do the mile under thirty minutes but who possess amazing powers of endurance when it comes to running circles around the man who is trained to do the hundred yard dash in ten seconds flat.
A few minutes after Braden Thorpe's departure from the Tresslyn drawing- room, young George entered the house and stamped upstairs to his combination bed-chamber and sitting-room on the top floor.