“It’s good of you to put it that way,” said Phillip, “but of course it was all my fault. I’m very sorry about it, honestly, and――――” “Nonsense,” interrupted John. “Let’s forget the whole silly affair and start fresh. I hope we’ll become good friends, Ryerson, and I shall be very glad to do anything I can for you. George Corliss, who wrote to me about you, is an old friend of the family and a chap I owe several favours to; a thoroughly good fellow all through. Have you known him long?” “Ever since I can remember,” answered Phillip. “He and father knew each other very well. I think they were related very distantly. Since father’s death he has been mighty good to us and has taken a heap of trouble.” John had seated himself in a comfortable Morris chair that still smelled of the factory, and now he examined the room with interest and some surprise. Plainly his new acquaintance didn’t intend to deny himself comforts. The apartment was filled with new furnishings, most of which, as John surmised, had probably been expensive. There were even new pictures on the walls and new drapings at the windows and at the door into the bedroom beyond. He tried to reconcile this with what Corliss had written him in regard to the family’s financial condition and was puzzled. “You have very comfortable quarters here,” he said. “I like these old-fashioned rooms with the overhead beams and the deep-set windows. They’re so quiet and restful and homelike. Some of the new dormitories are wonders, but I doubt if shower-baths and swimming-tanks and reading-rooms and all the rest of the modern conveniences quite make up for the atmosphere that you miss.” “I’d like to see some of those places you speak of,” said Phillip. “I reckon they must be mighty fine.” “They are. Some evening we’ll go around and call on some sybarites of my acquaintance in Westmorley and Claverly. There’s Pete Broom, for instance; he and another chap have three rooms and a bath, with hot water heat and telephone service and porcelain tubs and Heaven only knows what else! It’s all very beautiful and stupendous, but the idea of wearing ordinary clothes and smoking a pipe there is absolutely incongruous. Why, they ought to drape themselves in purple and gold and fine linen and sit all day on silken cushions. No, something of this sort suits me better. I like a room where the paint’s scraped off in places and where the window catches don’t always catch and where you feel that some one has lived before you and gone through what you’re going through. But then it’s all a matter of taste, of course.” “I reckon so,” answered Phillip. “I tried to get rooms in the house where my father lived when he was here, but they were all taken. So I came here. I like this very much so far.” “So your father was a Harvard man?” asked John.