"You haven't lost any time," said Stover, smiling. "That's right--heaps of fun." "What are _you_ going to run for?" said Stover, looking at him. "I? Nothing now. Fence orator, perhaps, later," said Gimbel frankly. "It's the fun of the game interests me--the organizing, pulling wires, all that sort of thing. I'm going to have a lot of fun here." "Look here, Gimbel," said Stover, yielding to a sudden appreciation of the other's openness. "Isn't this sort of thing going to get a lot of fellows down on you?" "Queer me?" said Gimbel, laughing. The word was still new to Stover, who showed his perplexity. "That's a great word," added his companion. "You'll hear a lot of it before you get through. It's a sort of college bug that multiplies rapidly. Will politics 'queer' me--keep me out of societies? Probably; but then, I couldn't make 'em anyway. So I'm going to have my fun. And I'll tell you now, Stover, I'm going to get a good deal more out of my college career than a lot of you fellows." "Why include me?" "Well, Stover, you're going to make a sophomore society, and go sailing along." "Oh, I don't know." "Yes, you do. We don't object to such men as you, who have the right. It's the lame ducks we object to." "Lame ducks?" said Stover, puzzled as well as surprised at this spokesman of an unsuspected proletariat opposition. "'Lame ducks' is the word: the fellows who would never make a society if it weren't for pulls, for the men ahead--the cripples that all you big men will be trying to bolster up and carry along with you into a senior society." "I'm not on to a good deal of this," said Stover, puzzled. "I know you're not. Look here." Gimbel, releasing his arm, faced him suddenly. "You think I'm a politician out to get something for myself." "Yes, I do." "Well, I am--I'm frank about it. There's a whole mass of us here who are going to fight the sophomore society system tooth and nail, and I'm with them. When you're in the soph crowd you mightn't like what I'm saying, and then again you may come around to our way of thinking. However, I want you to know that I'm hiding nothing--that I'm fighting in the open. We may be on opposite sides, but I guess we can shake hands. How about it?" "I guess we can always do that," said Stover, giving his hand. The man puzzled him. Was his frankness deep or a diplomatic assumption? "And now let's have no pretenses," continued Gimbel, on the same line, with a quick analytical glance. "You're going with your crowd; better join one of their eating-joints." Stover was genuinely surprised. "Have you already arranged it?" said Gimbel, laughing. "Gimbel," said Stover directly, "I'm not quite sure about you." "You don't know whether I'm a faker or not." "Exactly."