Meanwhile the college in all its activities opened before him,
absorbing him in its routine. The great mass of his comrades to be
gradually emerged from the blurred mists of the first day. He began to
perceive hundreds of faces, faces that fixed themselves in his memory,
ranging themselves, dividing according to his first impression into
sharply defined groups. Fellows sought him out, joined him when he
crossed the campus, asked him to drop in.
In chapel he found himself between Bob Story, a quiet, self-contained,
likable fellow, popular from the first from a certain genuine sweetness
and charity in his character, son of Judge Story of New Haven, one of
the most influential of the older graduates; and on the other side
Swazey, a man of twenty-five or six, of a type that frankly amazed
him--rough, uncouth, with thick head and neck, rather flat in the face,
intrusive, yellowish eyes, under lip overshot, one ear maimed by a scar,
badly dressed, badly combed, and badly shod. Belying this cloutish
exterior was a quietness of manner and the dreamy vision of a passionate
student. Where he came from Stover could not guess, nor by what strange
chance of life he had been thrown there. In front of him was the great
bulk of Regan, always bent over a book for the last precious moments,
coming and going always with the same irresistible steadiness of
purpose. He had not been at the wrestling the opening night, he had not
been out for football, because his own affairs, his search for work,
were to him more important; and, looking at him, Stover felt that he
would never allow anything to divert him from his main purpose in
college--first, to earn his way, and, second, to educate himself.
Stover, with others, had urged him to report for practise, knowing,
though not proclaiming it, that there lay the way to friendships that,
once gained, would make easy his problem.
"Not yet, Stover," said Regan, always with the same finality in his
tone. "I've got to see my way clear; I've got to know if I can down that
infernal Greek and Latin first. If I can, I'm coming out."
"Where do you room?" said Stover.
"Oh, out about a mile--a sort of rat-hole."
"I want to drop in on you."
"Come out sometime."
"Drop in on me."
"I'm going to."
"I say, Regan, why don't you see Le Baron?"
"What for?"
"Why, he might--might give you some good tips," said Stover, a little
embarrassed.
"Exactly. Well, I prefer to help myself."
Stover broke out laughing.
"You're a fierce old growler!"
"I am."
"I wish you'd come around a little and let the fellows know you."
"That can wait."
"I say, Regan," said Stover suddenly, "would you mind doing the waiting
over at our joint?"
"Why should I?"
"Why, I thought," said Stover, not saying what he had thought, "I
thought perhaps you'd find it more convenient at Commons."
"Is that what you really thought?" said Regan, with a quizzical smile.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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