It was two evenings later, and Purdick was the only drop-in; with Dick gone out somewhere, as was coming to be his nightly habit. After the séance with the trigonometry, which was Purdick’s bugbear, the handicapped one sat back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head. “I’m making the most of you while I can, Donovan,” he said, with a tight-lipped smile. “When you hitch up with the Omegs I’ll lose you.” “Who said I was going to hitch up with the Omegs?” Larry demanded. “Oh, I don’t know just who said it; such things always get around.” Then: “I’m sorry.” “What makes you sorry?” “A lot of things that I have no right to say to an Omeg pledge.” “I’m not a pledge――not yet.” “You mean that I’m free to say what I please?” “Sure you are. That is one of the privileges of this shop.” “You’ll say I’m prejudiced, and maybe I am. But you must remember that I’m a year older in Sheddon than you are. I don’t condemn the frats as a whole; some fellows are just naturally joiners, and I suppose they can’t help it. But this particular frat, or at least the Sheddon chapter of it, stands for everything that I despise, Donovan. Two-thirds of the men in it are rich men’s sons, and the pace they set is pretty swift. Last year they lost four of their pledges――canned and sent home.” “Why were they canned?” “The faculty reason was that they fell short of classwork requirements. But the reason why they fell short can be jammed into one word――dissipation. Oh, you needn’t look so horrified; it was what they, and all their world, would call ‘gentlemanly’ dissipation; a little card-playing for money, a little drinking, occasional midnight suppers over in town――that sort of thing.” “Do you mean to tell me that the faculty lets things of that kind go on, in a frat or out of it?” Larry demanded. Again little Purdick’s smile was thin-lipped. “Sheddon isn’t a training school for wayward youth, Donovan; it’s a college for men. Prexy will tell you that the faculty refuses to assume responsibility for your morals; that your character is supposed to be established before you come here. And he’ll probably add that your behavior off the campus will show up in your class markings, and that if these fall below the dead line――as they will if you run with the fast set――you’ll be sent home.” “Short and sweet,” Larry commented with a grin. Purdick was silent for a time. Then: “I’m sorry for another reason, Donovan. I thought you were one of us.” “How do you mean?” “You are a workingman, and the son of a workingman. You ought to stand with your class.” “But if I don’t believe in ‘classes’?” “You’ve got to believe in them, because they _are_. You can gloze it over all you want to, but that doesn’t change the fact. You’ve got to take sides, whether you want to or not.” “I don’t see it that way at all,” said Larry stubbornly, meaning that he was beginning to try mighty hard not to see it that way.