So far, so good. After Purdick got up and out, he paid his few debts and his delayed second semester dues, moved his scanty belongings over to Mrs. Grant’s, and apparently settled down to the new order of things without trying to find out anything more about his miraculous windfall. But Larry knew that the day of reckoning was only postponed, and it came one evening after the room had been cleared of the latest stragglers and its two occupants were left alone together. “Now, then, Donnie,” Purdick began, “I want to know something more about this ‘scholarship’ thing. And first let me say that I know now that it _isn’t_ a scholarship.” “But it is, in a way,” Larry insisted. “Not officially,” said Purdick. “There’s no record of any such thing in the books. I’ve asked the Registrar.” “Good gracious!” Larry exclaimed, seeing trouble ahead; “why can’t you let well enough alone?” “Because, as I said that night when you came to hunt me up, I can’t take anybody’s charity.” “Poor but proud, eh?” said Larry, knowing well enough that he would have felt exactly the same way in Purdick’s place. “You can call it that if you want to; I guess it’s the truth. But I want to know; I’ve _got_ to know.” “I’ll tell you all I can――which isn’t so very much,” Larry temporized. “The money was given to one of the fellows here to――er――do as he pleased with. He didn’t need it for himself, so he took a notion to give it to you――lend it to you, if you’d rather have it that way. Only instead of paying it back to him, he wants you to boost some other fellow, by and by, when you’re able to do it.” “That’s all right, as far as it goes. But who is the fellow?” “I can’t tell you. I’ve promised.” Little Purdick twisted himself in his chair and seemed to be looking out of the window, though the panes presented nothing but a blank wall of darkness. Finally he said: “I guess I’m up against it pretty hard, Donnie.” “How so?” “Can’t you see? You know the way I’ve always talked; what I’ve been thinking and saying about rich people. Nobody but some one of the rich fellows could do what’s been done to me. Can I take a bone that’s been thrown to a dog?” Larry grinned. “That depends, doesn’t it? Of course, if you’re calling yourself a dog――――” “Say it all,” Purdick prompted. “I don’t know how to say it so as to make anybody understand it. But this is the way it looks to me. If you do something for somebody that needs to have it done for ’em, you get a whole lot of satisfaction out of it, don’t you? Makes you feel sort of warm and comfortable all over, doesn’t it?” “Of course; everybody knows that.” “Well, if you’re going to be able to jolly yourself over the giving part of it, somebody else will have to do the taking, won’t he?”