Hayward Graham had repaid his mother’s sacrifices by diligence in his studies. He had been a close second to the leader of his class at the graded school, an exemplary and hard-working pupil in the grammar school, and at college his literary labours were diminished only by his efforts in athletics, which, indeed, did his work as a student little serious damage. He was quick to learn everything that his college career offered, not only the lore of books, but good-fellowship, easy manners and how to get on. His naturally friendly disposition did him little service at first in finding or making friends at Harvard, where there seemed to him to be so many desirable circles that he would be glad to enter, and he had thought for awhile his colour would bar him from any close friendships there. However, near the end of his freshman year he had occasion by personal combat to demonstrate his willingness to fight for the honour of his class and to show that his pugilistic powers were of no mean calibre, by thoroughly dressing down a couple of sophomores who had held him up to tell him what they thought of the whole tribe of freshmen, and who, upon his being so bold as to take issue with them, had attempted to "regulate" him. Kind-hearted Harry Lodge, himself a sophomore, had witnessed the trial of Graham’s courage, class loyalty and fistic abilities, and being struck with admiration had shaken hands with him and congratulated him on his prowess. From that moment Graham was by every token a member of the small coterie known as "Lodge’s Gang," to whom Lodge had introduced him as "the only freshman I know that’s worth a damn." From the time of his admission into this set of good fellows Graham’s social side was provided with all it desired. Lodge and his friends seemed to think nothing at all of Graham’s colour; or, if they did, made the more of him in their enthusiastic support of the idea that "a man’s a man for a’ that." They had enough rollicking fun to keep their spare hours filled to the brim and sought the society of women very seldom; but when they did go to pay their vows at the shrine of the feminine, Graham was as often of the party as any other of "the gang."