"In Richmond," the professor answered, as if it were quite a question without special interest to any one. "Good-day!" he added as he looked at his watch, "I'm due! Come and see me, some time!" The professor had been touched by the anxious air of the man and set it down to diffidence. He wished the students would not show that awe of him. None of them knew how friendly he would like to be; but he was studying, working, reading, dreaming, all the while. He dwelt in a world of abstractions and carried the atmosphere with him. It was an alien atmosphere and kept him apart. "Richmond!" said the young man to himself. "Richmond!" he could have shouted. His boot heels rang it in the pavement, his pulses throbbed it. "Richmond," and they were going there to-morrow. He rushed to his room, threw down his books, and began singing:-- "Gayly the Troubadour touched his guitar As he was hastening home from the war, Singing in search of thee fain would I roam, Lady love, lady love--" "Hello! What's the matter with you?" called some one through the door he had forgotten to close tightly, "it's time for practice." "I'm getting ready; come in and wait." The man entered. They had not been receiving many invitations to Lawson's rooms lately. "What's the matter with you?" he repeated as he leaned against the mantel. "Good news?" "Sure!" cried Lawson, slipping his sweater over his head. The young fellow leaning against the mantel, though he was clad in full toggery of padded trousers and sweater and socks showing the University colors gaudily, was yet no comparison for Lawson, and they both knew it. Lawson was far and away the best-looking man on the eleven. The very garb served to show his fine physique and animal beauty, and with this look of flushed pleasure and full life-- "Come on," growled the visitor; "you've primped enough!" "Primped! You saw me, didn't you?" "Well, you've got your clothes on; come on!" Lawson ran his arm through his visitor's arm and they went singing across the quadrangle-- "Hark 'twas the Troubadour, breathing her name: Under the battlement softly he came; Singing 'from Palestine, hither I come; Lady love, lady love, welcome me home.'" XII