He drew out his last clean collar and put it on, with the vague idea of going somewhere and doing something--what, he could not have told. His eyes fell on a framed document hanging near his mirror, a small but ornate instrument, setting forth that the Faculty and Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, by virtue of the authority in them vested, etc., conferred the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry on Philip Howard Williamson. His thoughts turned back toward a morning over four years gone, when he walked down the platform bearing that "last of his childhood's toys," and in imagination P.H. Williamson, M. D., held conversation with Philip Howard Williamson, A. B. Williamson, A. B., standing just the other side of the mirror, spoke and said: "It looks as though you were up against it." Williamson, M. D., arranging his tie so as to hide his soiled shirt, answered: "I am up against it. And it's your fault." Williamson, A. B., did not seem to see it. But he was a conceited creature, anyway. "It's more than half your fault," went on the man on the real side of the mirror. "You dug and worked, and you thought that if you only kept ahead of your class in Physiology you had a clean card to success. How many fellows did you know in college?" "Some. I never went in for being popular. There were Trueman, and Miller, and Rodney--" "And how many of them were of the sort to help you? Trueman, without family or brains, and Miller, who lived in the East, and little Rod--" "They were the best I could meet. They were the only ones who understood that I really wanted people. No one understood how I loved the college and wanted to be in things. I wasn't good at telling; and besides, I had my work to do. They knew the way I used to look across the campus on Spring nights--" Williamson, M. D., checked him at this point. That impractical creature thought that they were talking of friendship, when it was only a question of Pull. He conveyed that point to the Bachelor. "Why didn't you find some friends who would be of use to Me?" he asked, savagely. "While you were following out sutures and involuntary reactions, what was Marshall doing? Running for class president and making the Mandolin Club and getting acquainted with people of some use to him. He isn't one-two-six with me for ability and never was; but he has patients to give away, and I--" Williamson, A. B., came to bat. "You do mightily well to reproach me with all this. How have _you_ done in making friends? Did you work up any connections at Columbia those three years? Have you tried to find anyone here in town? What friends have you except Stanford men? What have you done for yourself, anyway?" The other weakly quoted what the Head Demonstrator had said of his surgery. Williamson, A. B., held him to the point: "I also was called the keenest student of my time," said he; "but it isn't bringing you patients."