Incredible as it may sound, that was the beginning of a real friendship between the three of us. Jarvis seemed to take a positive pleasure in being democratic. And he was wonderfully thoughtful, too. He realized instinctively that we had about nine cents apiece in our clothes as a rule, and he didn't offer to be gorgeous and buy things we couldn't buy back. We got to dropping in at the café once a week or so and eating at the same table with him. Why on earth he fancied eating around with grubs like us, when he could have been tucking away classy fare up on Fifth Avenue, we couldn't imagine. Some people are naturally Bohemian, however. It seemed to delight Jarvis to hear us tell about our team, and our college, and our prospects, and how lucky we had been up to date, not getting stepped on by any financial magnate or other tall city monument. He wasn't a talkative man himself. It was especially hard to pry any football talk out of him, probably because he was so modest. When we insisted he would finally open up, and tell us the inside facts about some great college game that we knew by heart from the newspaper accounts. And he would mention all the famous players by their first names--you can't imagine how much more alarming it sounded than calling a president "Teddy"--and we would just sit there and drink it in, and watch history from behind the scenes until suddenly he would stop, look absent and shut up like a clam. No use trying to turn him on again. Presently he would bid us good night and go away. The first time we thought we had offended him and we were miserable for a week. But when we ran across him again he seemed as pleased as ever to see us. It was just moods, after all, we finally decided, and thought no more about it. Great men have a right to have moods if they want to. We admired his moods as much as the rest of him, and were only glad they weren't violent. It was a couple of months before we got up courage enough to ask him to drop in at our room. Even Allie got timid. He explained that he didn't want to break the spell. But finally I braced up myself and invited him to drop around with us, and he consented as kindly as you please. Came right up to our little three by twice and wouldn't even sit in the one chair. Sat on the bed and looked over our college pictures, and chatted until Allie asked him if he was going back for the big game that fall. Then he said sort of abruptly that he couldn't get away, and a few minutes afterward he went home. We thought we'd offended him again, but a week afterward he turned up and called on us--we'd asked him to drop in any time. We decided that he didn't like to have too much familiarity about his football career and we respected him for it. It's all right for a man like that to be affable and democratic, but he mustn't let you crawl all over him. He's got his dignity to maintain.