There was another visit to the theatre about this time. He and Chester witnessed the performance of a sensational melodrama, which Chester subsequently re-enacted for his benefit on the platform of the Boylston Street Station of the subway, to the intense interest of several score of dignified citizens of Cambridge and the Back Bay. Phillip paid his half of the expenses without questioning, having discovered that Chester’s theatre parties were invariably Dutch treats. And about the same time Phillip awoke to the fact that there was a well-developed skeleton in his closet which, for want of a better name, might have been called Pecuniary Embarrassment. Expenses came thick and fast. He purchased a new suit of brown tweed cut in the prevailing mode, with a short jacket having a stunning plait and belt, and a pair of trousers surprisingly generous at the back. A dress suit followed this, and some shirts in blue and pink and green effects, a crimson cap and several pairs of wonderful socks. Then he made the startling discovery one morning that he was the only fellow at a recitation who wore high shoes. At noon he went to a shop on the avenue and purchased a pair of low ones with very extended soles. He caught a violent cold the first day he wore them――which happened to be wet and raw――but persisted and suffered in the cause of fashion for a week. When he had to stay in his room for the whole of one day and take medicine, he consoled himself with the knowledge that, even as an invalid, he was attired in the mode. He joined the Union, bought an H. A. A. ticket and rented a locker at the Newell Boat Club. As he had nothing with which to grace the locker he purchased a pair of rowing-trunks and a shirt and promised himself a place in a freshman crew. Meanwhile he had joined a freshman club table at The Inn and was living very satisfactorily. But six dollars a week, payable monthly, caused the skeleton to rattle noisily. His connection with the table had come about as the result of an advertisement in the _Crimson_. He had interviewed the fellow who was getting it up and had learned the names of those who had already joined. He had conferred with John North, and the latter had advised him to cast in his lot with the freshmen rather than to go to the general table, where, as John delicately explained, freshmen weren’t popular. The Inn was not particularly handy to his rooms, but John insisted that the walk there and back several times daily would do him good.