“I don’t know why I shouldn’t fall all over myself to jump at the chance,” he returned. “Dad was a member of the Omegs, right here in Old Sheddon, and, as I’ve said, they’ve given me a bid. I think it’s mighty nice of the fellows.” Then: “I didn’t expect you’d give me the glad hand. You’ve been sort of prejudiced against the frats from the first, haven’t you?” “Maybe some of it _is_ prejudice,” Larry admitted, wanting to be perfectly fair; “but to me the whole fraternity idea seems to take a wrong shoot. If any place in the world ought to be democratic it’s a college. When little bunches of the fellows pull off to one side and shut out the rest ... well, that’s bad enough; but when, on top of that, they try to run things――――” “The fraternities don’t try to run anything but themselves,” Dick defended. “That’s only your idea, Larry.” This was entirely true. When we look through the battered old telescope called Life, we see mostly what we are expecting to see; and with his workingman’s eye Larry wasn’t expecting to see much good in anything as exclusive as a fraternity. “Maybe they don’t openly try to run things,” he countered. “But they stand together and hold themselves as being a lot better than us fellows on the outside. You know they do.” “Well,” said Dick, grinning, “they get the pick of the fellows from each incoming class, or try to: why shouldn’t they be better than the leavings?” Larry’s answering grin was perfectly good-tempered. They had threshed this matter out a good many times in the past. “Present company excepted, I take it,” he put in, adding: “I’m one of the ‘leavings,’ you know.” Dick sat down, chuckling delightedly. “I just wanted to see how you’d take that,” he explained. “You have the one big necessary qualification――angelic humility. You’ll do, all right.” “Do for what?” Dick got up and put an arm across Larry’s shoulders. “You hump-backed old greasy grind!” he chanted; “did you swallow the notion that I was going to duck out and leave you to wallow all alone in the mire of your own splendiferous conceit? It’s a dead secret yet, but I’m allowed to whisper it to you. You’re due to get a bid to the Omegs yourself!”