The morning after the Institute social J.W. announced at breakfast his sudden change of plan. "If you don't mind, Dad, I've about decided to go to the Institute instead of Chicago. There is a bunch of us going, and Mr. Drury will be there. Uncle Henry's folks might not want to be bothered with me now, and anyway I don't know them very well. But I can go to the Institute with the church crowd; and there will be tennis and swimming and plenty of other fun besides the big program." Which was quite a speech for J. W. John Wesley, Sr., didn't know much about the Institute, but he had an endless regard for his pastor, and the mother was characteristically willing to postpone her boy's introduction to the unknown and, in her thought, therefore, the menacing city. So, after the brief but unhurried devotions at the breakfast table, which had come to serve in place of the old-time family prayers, parental approval was forthcoming. And thus it befell that J.W. selected for himself a future whose every experience was to be affected by so slight a matter as his impulsive choice of a week's holiday. That choice expressed to him the new freedom of his years, for he had not even been conscious of the quiet influence which had made it easier than he knew to decide as he had done. * * * * * It was a mixed and lively company that found itself crowded around the registrar's table at the Institute one Monday evening in July, with J. W. and his own particular chum, Martin Luther Shenk, better known as "Marty," right in the middle of it. J.W. wondered where so many Epworthians could have come from. Did they really hanker after the Institute, or had they come for reasons as trivial as his own? He put the question to Martin Luther Shenk. "Marty, do you reckon these are all here for real Epworth League work, or does the Institute want anybody and everybody?" Marty had been scouting a little, and he answered: "No, to both questions, I should say. Some have come just to be coming, and others seem to be here for business. But I saw Joe Carbrook just now, and if he is an Epworth Leaguer I am the Prince of Puget Sound. You know how he stands at home. Wonder what he came for." Just then Joe Carbrook himself came up. He was from Delafield too, member of the same League chapter as the two chums, but he had rarely condescended to league affairs. Having had two rather variegated years at college, he felt he must show his sophistication by holding himself above some of those simple old observances. "S'pose you are here for solemn and serious work, you two," he remarked mockingly, as he saw the boys. "I just met Marcia Dayne, and she told me you were registering. Well, I'm here too--drove up in my car--but you don't catch me tying myself down to all that study stuff. I'm looking for fun, not work."