Don't you appreciate a challenge? [The professor asks, with an amused lilt to his words.] I find I get the measure of my students far better when I occasionally give them an assignment that's just a bit out of reach. How a child fails can tell you just as much as how one succeeds.

[The big man watches Cy with an unabashedly intense expression, a smile hovering around his lips.] How do you feel you did?