"It's a lucky thing I came back unexpectedly," she said. "The idea of finding a little Jew boy like that in my room--sitting in my own bedroom with his copy books spread all over my directoire desk! A common little boy with an accent!" I saw it all, now. "That boy was one of my best friends," I told her as calmly as I could. "Had I thought you would have objected to his presence here, I would never have invited him to stay with me for these weeks." "Weeks? What, you have had that little East Side creature here for weeks?" She began to walk up and down the hall in feline fury. "Haven't you any idea of what is proper? Here I go away with some of the most cultured and well-known society people in New York--an absolute triumph--and you use my home as a refuge for nasty little scum of the slums. It isn't bad enough for you to spend your summer in such disgusting company. You have to cap it all by bringing them up into my own home. Think of the disgrace it would mean if any of these new friends of mine were to discover it!" "I have my own friends to consider," I told her patiently. "And this boy is one of them. What did you tell him?" "Tell him? What should I tell him?" She made a great show of shuddering. "I told him to get out. To--to get out as fast as he could." I looked at her evenly for as long a while as she could stand it. Then her miserable pose gave way to pettishness, and she cried: "And what's more, you'll have to get out yourself, if you insist on trying any more of these outrageous things. I can't bear it, that's all. You'll have to get out before you disgrace me!" "I shall," I agreed, and, passing her, went into my own room and began to pack. We had a silent, sullen supper. At the end of it I told her that my clothes were packed and that I intended moving on the morrow to Trevelyan's empty suite, up at college. I would take none of the furniture from my room, however, since I did not wish to inconvenience her. I would not trouble her at all after tonight. She may have thought this was pure bragging, she may have been reconciled to it. At any rate she made no answer, and let me go to my room without a word of comment. And it was only two weeks later, when I was comfortably settled in my room on the campus, that I received a stormy letter from her, calling me a "most ungrateful monster of a nephew." XV COLLEGE LIFE Across the hall from Trevelyan's rooms lived one of the college "grinds." Now that I had moved there and came and went at all hours of the day, I saw this man often. Fallon--that was his name--stood fully six-feet four, and had about a thirty-two-inch waist. He stooped until his thin shoulder blades were at directly right angles to each other. He would never talk to any one he met on his way; his nose was always deep in the book which he held outspread. He was the most ferocious grind I have ever known.