Allan Ware was eighteen years old, a straight, lithe lad, with rather rebellious brown hair and a face still showing the summer’s tan. His features were not perfect by any means, but they were all good, and if you would not have thought of calling the face handsome, you would nevertheless have liked it on the instant. There was a clearness and steadiness about the brown eyes, a gentleness about the mouth, and a firmness about the chin which all combined to render the countenance attractive and singularly wholesome. It was a face with which one would never think of associating meanness. And yet to jump to the conclusion that Allan had never done a mean act would have been rash; he was only an average boy, and as human as any of them. Allan had come up to Erskine from Hillton without heralding; he was not a star football player, a brilliant baseball man, nor a famous athlete; he had always run in the distances at the preparatory school principally because he liked running and not because he believed himself cut out for a record breaker. His afternoon’s performance had been as much of a surprise to him as to any. At Hillton he had been rather popular among his set, but he had never attempted to become a leader. His classmates had gone to other colleges--many to Harvard and Yale, a few to Columbia and Princeton, only one to Erskine. Allan had chosen the latter college to please his mother; his own inclinations had been toward Yale, for Allan had lived all his life in New Haven, and was blue all through. But Allan’s grandfather had gone to Erskine--his name was one of those engraved on the twin tablets in the chapel transept, tablets sacred to the memories of those sons of Erskine who had given their lives in the struggle for the preservation of the Union--and Allan’s father had gone there, too. Allan couldn’t remember very much about his father--the latter had died when the boy was ten years old--but he sympathized with his mother’s wish that he also should receive his education under the elms of Centerport. His family was not any too well supplied with wealth, but his mother’s tastes were simple and her wants few, and there had always been enough money forthcoming for the needs of his sister Dorothy, two years his junior, and for himself. If there had been any sacrifices at home, he had never known of them. At Hillton he had had about everything he wanted--his tastes were never extravagant--and the subject of money had never occupied his thoughts. At eighteen, if one is normal, there are heaps of things far more interesting than money. One of them is dinner.