Jim was studying German, tilted back in an elegant position of ease, with his legs cocked up on the desk tablet of the escritoire. Elmer lay across the bed, ascertaining whether the blood would run to his head if he lowered it over the side. It did, always. “Oh, God, let’s get out and do something!” he groaned. “Nothing to do, Useless,” said Jim. “Let’s go over to Cato and see the girls and get drunk.” As Kansas was dry, by state prohibition, the nearest haven was at Cato, Missouri, seventeen miles away. Jim scratched his head with a corner of his book, and approved: “Well, that’s a worthy idea. Got any money?” “On the twenty-eighth? Where the hell would I get any money before the first?” “Hell-cat, you’ve got one of the deepest intellects I know. You’ll be a knock-out at the law. Aside from neither of us having any money, and me with a Dutch quiz tomorrow, it’s a great project.” “Oh, well—” sighed the ponderous Elmer, feebly as a sick kitten, and lay revolving the tremendous inquiry. It was Jim who saved them from the lard-like weariness into which they were slipping. He had gone back to his book, but he placed it, precisely and evenly, on the desk, and rose. “I would like to see Nellie,” he sighed. “Oh, man, I could give her a good time! Little devil! Damn these co-eds here. The few that’ll let you love ’em up, they hang around trying to catch you on the campus and make you propose to ’em.” “Oh, gee! And I got to see Juanita,” groaned Elmer. “Hey, cut out talking about ’em, will you! I’ve got a palpitating heart right now, just thinking about Juanny!” “Hell-cat! I’ve got it. Go and borrow ten off this new instructor in chemistry and physics. I’ve got a dollar sixty-four left, and that’ll make it.” “But I don’t know him.” “Sure, you poor fish. That’s why I suggested him! Do the check-failed-to-come. I’ll get another hour of this Dutch while you’re stealing the ten from him—” “Now,” lugubriously, “you oughtn’t to talk like that!” “If you’re as good a thief as I think you are, we’ll catch the five-sixteen to Cato.” They were on the five-sixteen for Cato. The train consisted of a day-coach, a combined smoker and baggage car, and a rusty old engine and tender. The train swayed so on the rough tracks as it bumped through the drooping light that Elmer and Jim were thrown against each other and gripped the arm of their seat. The car staggered like a freighter in a gale. And tall raw farmers, perpetually shuffling forward for a drink at the water-cooler, stumbled against them or seized Jim’s shoulder to steady themselves. To every surface of the old smoking-car, to streaked windows and rusty ironwork and mud-smeared cocoanut matting, clung a sickening bitterness of cheap tobacco fumes, and whenever they touched the red plush of the seat, dust whisked up and the prints of their hands remained on the plush. The car was jammed. Passengers came to sit on the arm of their seat to shout at friends across the aisle.