He had, too, the large grey-blue eye of his father, an eye that never lost for a moment its staring expression of kindly honesty, and the lad's whole countenance was one which, without being particularly handsome, or even very intelligent, won an honest man's regard at first sight.
"My dear Sam," said his mother, "leave off playing with your father's hair, and listen to me, for I have something serious to say to you.
Last night your father and I were debating about sending you to school, but Doctor Mulhaus has himself offered to be your tutor, thereby giving you advantages, for love, which you never could have secured for money.
Now, the least we can expect of you, my dear boy, is that you will be docile and attentive to him." "I will try, Doctor dear," said Sam.

"But I am very stupid sometimes, you know." So the good Doctor, whose head was stored with nearly as much of human knowledge as mortal head could hold, took simple, guileless little Sam by the hand, and led him into the garden of knowledge.

Unless I am mistaken, these two will pick more flowers than they will dig potatoes in the aforesaid garden, but I don't think that two such honest souls will gather much unwholesome fruit.

The danger is that they will waste their time, which is no danger at all, but a certainty.
I believe that such an education as our Sam got from the Doctor would have made a slattern and a faineant out of half the boys in England.

If Sam had been a clever boy, or a conceited boy, he would have ended with a superficial knowledge of things in general, imagining he knew everything when he knew nothing, and would have been left in the end, without a faith either religious or political, a useless, careless man.
This danger the Doctor foresaw in the first month, and going to the Major abruptly, as he walked up and down the garden, took his arm, and said,-- "See here, Buckley.