education permitted. He dropped the glasses off his nose and glared at me.
“I’ve often told you you were a fool,” he said. “You have let yourself be imposed upon by a clodhopper. And you have imposed upon me.”
“How,” I asked, “have I imposed upon you?”
“By your ignorance,” said he. “Twice I have discovered serious flaws in your plans that a common-school education should have enabled you to avoid. And,” he continued, “I have been put to expense that I could ill afford in pursuing this swindling quest. I am done with it.”
I rose and pointed a large pewter spoon at him, fresh from the dish-water.
“Goodloe Banks,” I said, “I care not one parboiled navy bean for your education. I always barely tolerated it in any one, and I despised it in you. What has your learning done for you? It is a curse to yourself and a bore to your friends. Away,” I said—“away with your water-marks and variations! They are nothing to me. They shall not deflect me from the quest.”
I pointed with my spoon across the river to a small mountain shaped like a pack-saddle.
“I am going to search that mountain,” I
