"Eh, freshman, take off that hat!"
He removed his derby immediately, bowing to a hilarious crowd, who rocked ahead shouting back unintelligible gibes at him.
Others were clinging to car steps and straps.
"Hello, Dink!"
Some one had called him but he could not discover who. He swung down the crowded street to the heart of the city in the rapid dropping of the twilight. There was a dampness underfoot that sent to him long, wavering reflections from early street-lamps. The jumble of the city was in his ears, the hazy, crowded panorama in his eyes, at his side the passing contact of strangers. Everything was multiplied, complex, submerging his individuality.
But this feeling of multitude did not depress him. He had come to conquer, and zest was in his step and alertness in his glance. Out of the churning of the crowd he passed into the clear sweep of the city Common, and, looking up through the mist, for the first time beheld the battlements of the college awaiting him ahead, lost in the hazy elms.
Across the quiet reaches of the Common he went slowly, incredibly, toward these strange shapes in brick and stone. The evening mist had settled. They were things undefined and mysterious, things as real as the things of his dreams. He passed on through the portals of Phelps Hall, hearing above his head for the first time the echoes of his own footsteps against the resounding vault.
Behind him remained the city, suddenly hushed. He was on the campus, the Brick Row at his left; in the distance the crowded line of the fence, the fence where he later should sit in joyful conclave. Somewhere there in the great protecting embrace of these walls were the friends that should be his, that should pass with him through those wonderful years of happiness and good fellowship that were coming.
"And this is it—this is Yale," he said reverently, with a little tightening of the breath.
They had begun at last—the happy, care-free years that every one proclaimed. Four glorious years, good times, good fellows, and a free and open fight to be among the leaders and leave a name on the roll of fame. Only four years, and then the world with its perplexities and grinding trials.
"Four years," he said softly. "The best, the happiest I'll ever know! Nothing will ever be like them—nothing!"
And, carried away with the confident joy of it, he went toward his house, shoulders squared, with the step of a d'Artagnan and a song sounding in his ears.
CHAPTER II
He found the house in York Street, a low, white-washed frame building, luminous under the black canopy of the overtowering elms. At the door there was a little resistance and a guarded voice cried:
"What do you want?"
"I want to get in."
"What for?"
"Because I want to."
"Very sorry," said McNab's rather squeaky voice—"most particular sorry; but this house is infected with yellow fever and the rickets, and we wouldn't for the world share it with the sophomore class—oh, no!"
A light began to dawn over Stover.
"I'm rooming here," he said.
"What's your name and general style of beauty?"
"Stover, and I've got a twitching foot."
"Why didn't you say so?" said McNab, who then admitted him. "Pardon me. The sophomores are getting so fidgety, you know, hopping all up and down. My name's McNab—German extraction. Came up on the train, ahead of you—thought you were a sophomore, you put on such a beautiful side. Here, put on that chain."
"Hazing?"
"Oh, no, indeed. Just a few members of the weakling class above us might get too fond of us; just must see us—welcome to Yale and all that sort of thing. I hate sentimental exhibitions, don't you?"
"Is McCarthy here?" said Stover, laughing.
"Your wife is waiting for you most anxiously."
"Hello, is that Dink?" called down McCarthy's exuberant voice at this moment.
Stover went up the stairs like a terrier, answering the joyful whoop with a war-cry of his own. The next moment he and McCarthy were pummeling each other, wrestling about the room, to the dire danger of furniture and crockery. When this sentimental moment had exhausted itself physically, McCarthy bore him to the back of the house, saying:
"We don't want to show our light in front just yet. We've got a corking lot in the house—best of the Andover crowd. Come on; I'll introduce you. You remember Hunter, who played against me at tackle? He's here."
There were half a dozen loitering on the window-seat and beds in the pipe-ridden room.
Hunter, in shirt sleeves, sorting the contents of his trunk, came forward at once.
"Hello, Stover, how are you?"
"How are you?"
No sooner did their hands clasp than a change came to Dink. He was face to face with the big man of the Andover crowd, measuring him and being measured. The sudden burst of boyish affection that had sent him into McCarthy's arms was gone. This man could not help but be a leader in the class. He was older than the rest, but how much it would have been hard to say. He examined, analyzed, and deliberated. He knew what lay before him. He would make no mistakes. He was carried away by no sentimental enthusiasm. Everything about him was reserved—his cordiality, the quiet grip of his hand, the smile of welcome, and the undecipherable estimate in his eyes.
"Will you follow me or shall I follow you?" each seemed to say in the first contact, which was a challenge.
"How are you?" said Stover, shaking hands with some one else; and the tone was the tone of Hunter.
There were three others in the room: Hunter's room-mate, Stone, a smiling, tall, good-looking fellow who shook his hand an extra period; Saunders, silent, retired behind his spectacles; and Logan, who roomed with McNab, who sunk his shoulders as he shook hands and looked into Stover's eyes intensely as he said, "Awful glad; awful glad to know you."
"Have a pipe—cigarette—anything?" said Hunter over his shoulder, from the trunk to which he had returned.
"No, thanks."
"Started training?"
"Sort of."
"Take a chair and make yourself at home," said Hunter warmly, but without turning.
The talk was immediately of what each was going to do. Stone was out for the glee club, already planning to take singing lessons in the contest for the leadership, three years off. Saunders was to start for the News. Logan had made drawings during the summer and was out for the Record. Hunter was trying for his class team and the crew. Only McNab was defiant.
"None of that for me," he said, on his back, legs in the air, blowing rings against the ceiling. "I'm for a good time, the best in life. It may be a short one, but it'll be a lulu!"
"You'll be out heeling the Record, Dopey, inside of a month," said Hunter quietly.
"Never, by the Great Horned Spoon—never!"
"And you'll get a tutor, Dopey, and stay with us."
"Never! I came to love and to be loved. I'm a lovely thing; that's sufficient," said McNab, with a grimace to his elfish face. "I will not be harnessed up. I will not heel."
"Yes, you will."
Hunter's tone had not varied. Stover, studying him, wondered if he had marked out the route of Stone, Saunders, and Logan,