With the beginning of his senior year James entered another phase
of his development. He offered to the college a new, or at least
an enlarged, interpretation of himself. Some of his smiling
good-fellowship had been sloughed to make way for the benignity of
a budding statesman. He still held a tolerant attitude to the
antics of his friends, but it was easy to see that he had put away
childish things. To his many young women admirers he talked
confidentially of his aims and aspirations. The future of James
K. Farnum was a topic he never exhausted.
It was, too, a subject which greatly interested Jeff and Sam
Miller. His cousin might smile at his poses, and often did, but he
never denied James qualities likely to carry him far.
"His one best bet is his belief in himself," Sam announced one
night.
"It's a great thing to believe in yourself."
"He's so dead sure he's cast for a big part. The egoism just oozes
out of him. He doesn't know himself that he's a faker."
"He is a long way from that," Jeff protested warmly.
"Take his oratory," Miller went on irritably. "It's all bunk. He
throws a chest and makes you feel he's a big man, but what he says
won't stand analysis--just a lot of platitudes.
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