He left the crowded walk and walked over toward the cannon and leaned against a nearby elm-tree. Then he fixed his gaze steadily upon the top of the old cannon and tried to think of nothing else. He had learned to take himself in hand this way during his overworked football season. "It isn't so bad as all this," he said aloud to himself. "You are still rocky and your blamed nerves are getting in their work again. That's all it is. Now, then, hold on. You aren't a hysterical little school-girl, you know." In a moment he started on toward Dickinson Hall again. "We are going to a lecture now," he explained to himself in a whisper, "and we're going to hear lots of interesting things. We can talk over all those other matters later on. There's plenty of time, plenty of time." He took a long, full breath, as though to hold on tight, and threw up his head and looked squarely into a pair of brown eyes that were gazing intently at him. It was That Freshman. He had often wondered why he was constantly running across this same little freshman with the sensitive mouth and the large, thoughtful eyes. He did not know his name, but he enjoyed observing from the patronizing height of a senior an air of delicate refinement in the features and movements of the boy. Sometimes when in a good humor he nodded to him. But just now the peculiar wistful gaze breaking in on him in his tossed-up state of mind seemed eerie. For an instant he had a feeling of guilty fright, as if caught doing something. And then, because angry with himself for being startled by a freshman, he blurted out, in a husky voice, "Oh, what do you want?" The under-classman blushed and stepped back. He said something incoherent ending with "Why--er--nothing-- I beg pardon." He attempted a smile, failed, colored more than ever, dropped his eyes in embarrassment, and with a sort of shiver turned on his heel. The senior, with his own harsh voice still echoing in his ear, stood there with his hands in his pockets watching the younger boy shrinking before him. Then something inside of him was touched. He felt how brutally rude he had been, and he wanted to make amends for it. He felt more than that. He wanted to be kind to this boy with the refined face; he wanted to be tender toward him, to protect him, or something queer and wild like that. Though he did not acknowledge it to himself tears were ready to come to his dark, blood-shot eyes with the dark rings under them, and he had an impulse to throw his arm about the freshman's shoulder and say: "You dear little fellow!" Neurasthenia could account for some of this. As it was he turned and followed the freshman from the side of the new bulletin-elm, where this took place, to the corner of the Old North. Here, hardly realizing what he was doing, he touched his shoulder and said, in a gruff voice, though he did not mean it to be, "Don't you want to take a walk?"