that the affair was settled quite amicably some time since. Glad to be here, General?”
“I think so. Thanks for the promotion, though. I’m usually just ‘Len.’”
“Oh, that’s all right. No trouble to promote you. What does ‘Len’ stand for?”
“Leonard.”
“Swell name. You’ve got the edge on the other Grant. Ulysses sounds like something out of the soda fountain. Well, I hope we’ll hit it off all right. I’m an easy-going sort, General; never much of a scrapper and hate to argue. Last year, over in Borden, I roomed with a chap named Endicott. Dick was the original arguer. He could start with no take-off at all and argue longer, harder and faster than any one outside a court of law. I was a great trial to him, I suspect. If he said Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote ‘The Merchant of Venice’ I just said ‘Sure, Mike’ and let it go at that. Arguing was meat and drink to that fellow.”
“And what became of him? I mean, why aren’t you – ”
“Together this year? He didn’t come back. You see, he spent so much time in what you might call controversy that he didn’t get leisure for studying. So last June faculty told him that he’d failed to pass and that if he came back he’d have about a million conditions to work off. He did his best to argue himself square, but faculty beat him out. After all, there was only one of him and a dozen or so faculty, and it wasn’t a fair contest. At that, I understand they won by a very slight margin!”
“Hard luck,” laughed Leonard. “I dare say he was a star member of the debating club, if there is one here.”
“There is, but Dick never joined. He said they were amateurs. What do you say to supper? Oh, by the way, you were out for football, weren’t you? What’s your line?”
“I’ve played guard mostly.”
“Guard, eh?” Slim looked him over appraisingly. “Sort of light, aren’t you?”
“I guess so,” allowed Leonard. “Of course, I don’t expect to make the first; that is, this year.”
Slim grinned wickedly. “No, but you’ll be fit to tie if you don’t. Take me now. Last year I was on the second. Left end. I’m only a soph, and sophs on the big team are as scarce as hen’s teeth. So, of course, I haven’t the ghost of a show and absolutely no hope of making it. But if I don’t there’s going to be a heap of trouble around here!”
“Well, I suppose I have a sneaking hope,” acknowledged Leonard, smiling.
“Sure. Might as well be honest with yourself. As for playing guard, well, if you got hold of a suit about three sizes too large for you, stuffed it out with cotton-batting and put heel-lifts in your shoes you might stand a show. Or you might if it wasn’t for this fellow Renneker. I dare say you’ve heard about him? He’s ab-so-lutively sure of one guard position or the other. And then there’s Smedley and Squibbs and Raleigh and Stimson and two-three more maybe If I were you, General, I’d switch to end or quarter.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to elbow you out,” laughed Leonard.
“That’s right.” Slim grinned. “Try quarter then. We’ve got only two in sight so far.”
Leonard shook his head. “Guard’s my job,” he said. “I’ll plug along at it. I might get on the second, I dare say. And next year – The trouble is, I can’t seem to grow much, Staples!”
“Better call me ‘Slim.’ Everybody else does. Well, you know your own business best. Only, if you tell Johnny that you belong to the Guard’s Union and that the rules won’t allow you to play anything else, why, I’m awfully afraid that the only thing you’ll get to guard will be the bench! Let’s go to chow.”
At the door of the dining hall they parted, for Slim’s table was not Leonard’s. “But,” said the former, “I guess we can fix that to-morrow. There are a couple of guys at our table that don’t fit very well. I’ll arrange with one of them to switch. Care to go over to Mac’s this evening? Being a newcomer, you’re sort of expected to. They’ll be mostly freshies, but we don’t have to stay long. I’ll pick you up at the room about eight.”
Under Slim’s guidance Leonard went across to the Principal’s house at a little after the appointed hour and took his place in the line that led through the front portal and past where Doctor McPherson and Mrs. McPherson were receiving. Slim introduced the stranger and then hustled him away into the library. “Might as well do it all up brown,” he observed sotto voce. “Met any of the animals yet?”
“Animals?” repeated Leonard vaguely.
“Faculty,” explained Slim. “All right. We’ll find most of ’em in here. They can see the dining room from here, you’ll observe, and so they sort of stand around, ready to rush the minute the flag goes down. Not so many here yet. Try to look serious and intellectual; they like it. Mr. Screven, I want you to meet my friend Grant. General, this is Mr. Screven. And Mr. Metcalf. Mr. Metcalf wrote the French and Spanish languages, General.”
“If I had, Staples, I’d have written them more simply, so you could learn them,” replied the instructor with a twinkle.
“Touche!” murmured Slim. “Honest, though, I wasn’t so rotten, was I, sir?”
“You might have been much worse, Staples. Don’t ask me to say more.”
“Well, I’ll make a real hit with you this year, sir. They say Sophomore French is a cinch.”
“I trust you’ll find it so,” replied Mr. Metcalf genially. “Where is your home, Mr. Grant?”
Presently Slim’s hand tugged him away to meet Mr. Tarbot and Mr. Kincaid and Mr. Peghorn, by which time Leonard couldn’t remember which was which, although Slim’s running comment, en route from one to another, was designed to aid his friend’s memory. “Peghorn’s physics,” appraised Slim. “You won’t have him, not this year. He’s a bit deaf. Left ear’s the best one. Don’t let him nail you or he’ll talk you to death. Here we are.”
There were others later, but Leonard obtained sustenance before meeting them, for Slim so skillfully maneuvered that when the dining room doors were thrown open only a mere half-dozen guests beat him to the table. To the credit of the faculty be it said that Mr. Kincaid only lost first place by a nose. The refreshments were satisfactory if not elaborate and Slim worked swiftly and methodically, and presently, their plates well piled with sandwiches, cake and ice-cream, the two retired to a corner. The entering class was large that fall and, since not a few of the other classes were well represented, the Doctor’s modest residence was crowded. Slim observed pessimistically that he had never seen a sorrier looking lot of freshies.
“How about last year?” asked Leonard innocently.
“The entering class last year,” replied Slim with dignity, “was remarkably intelligent and – um – prepossessing. Every one spoke of it. Even members of the class themselves noticed it. Want another slice of cake?”
Leonard rather pitied some of the new boys. They looked so timid and unhappy, he thought. Most of them had no acquaintances as yet, and although the faculty members and some of the older fellows worked hard to put them at their ease they continued looking like lost souls. Even ice-cream and cake failed to banish their embarrassment. The Principal’s wife, good soul, haled them from dark corners and talked to them brightly and cheerfully while she thrust plates of food into their numbed hands, but so soon
