“College life”--but Dickey Dawson and the three fellows who had stopped in to see him that afternoon, rather prided themselves on not being typical of any recognised phase of that comprehensive platitude. They had all, thus far, in their college life, ingeniously escaped going in for anything in particular and were in the habit of regarding themselves as a nucleus for a future society, to be composed of unrepresentative Harvard men. Little Dickey Dawson even went so far as to be almost ashamed of his own undeniable popularity; but, as he remarked apologetically, “It is not always possible to avert success.” He was not well that afternoon. The college physician had come, caused Dickey to throw back his head, open wide his mouth and say “ah-h-h, ah-h-h,” while he peered in with a sort of deprecatory craftiness and found, “no white spots, but a state of congestion.” Generally speaking, your acquaintances at college do not realise that you have been sick until they meet you in the Yard and are given an opportunity to express their belated sympathy. The men, however, who were gossiping in Dickey Dawson’s room that day, were the men who had missed him at breakfast and luncheon and had come to hunt him up--the men, in short, whom he knew best and enjoyed most. There was Tommy, with the profile and the glasses. He was the sort of person who occasionally writes wordy little book reviews for an obscure literary magazine, and refers to himself, now and then, as “a driven penny-a-liner.” Then there was Charlie Bolo who was not popularly credited with much sense beyond his exceedingly deformed sense of humour. There was also Bigelow--a bore with an accomplishment. All three of them had a kind of verbal agility that passed, among themselves, for cleverness. “What means this ghastly pomp and circumstance?” asked Dickey Dawson from the sofa, as he reached out and clutched at the voluminous tails of Tommy’s frock coat. “It means, my dear, that I have been to see two women whom I never met before,” answered Tommy, daintily gathering his skirts about him and sitting down. “One of them lived in a suburb and was perfectly horrible.” “The other,” put in Charlie Bolo, who possessed the disagreeable gift of conversational prophecy, “lived in a dungeon on a proper street, and was merely horribly perfect.” “Yes, you are right,” assented Tommy, complacently. “She was a Bodkin, and--well--you know--Bodkins are Bodkins.” He submitted to the _sui generical_ fashion in which one is obliged to refer to certain Boston families.