“Let me see,” he said in a still more quiet tone, “these indefinite invitations are insulting.” It was the second time he had caught the cause of Quincy’s trouble. “What about a date to-night? Can you come?” Quincy looked at him. The first general wave of invitations, and that succeeding flood when he was harnessed to the track team, had died utterly away. He had been alone for three weeks. He was sensitive and he was skeptical. But Garsted was different. And it was hard to transfer upon him so sustainedly his irritation at Mr. Deering. Garsted was a close-set fellow. His head was long, almost ponderous, with coarse, blond, short-cropped hair. His nose was massive, angularly chiseled, his mouth was broad and showed a row of teeth immaculately white and separate one from the other. All of him seemed roughly hewn out of some stubborn stone--abrupt, big, yet anomalously delicate. As he spoke, he stammered at the beginning of each sentence; but once over this initial barrier, he went on freely, until the pause. “I have nothing on, to-night.” “Very well,” said Garsted. “Come at six. There’s my dorm. Room number ten.” He pointed, and dashed off. Quincy had never seen such a room as this. Through a maze of tobacco smoke, a naked gas-jet gave out its light. Garsted, in suspenders, loomed out of the shadows, looking like some grotesque statue, his hair dishevelled, a cigarette dropping from his lips. “Hello. Come in,” he said without a sign of stammering. Quincy felt his way into the room. It was long and low. It had three leaded lattice windows. Above one was the gas-jet. On the full wall was a suspended book-case, littered with manuscripts, papers and exotic-looking volumes. Below, was a cot, unmade; and lost in the heterogeneous bed-clothes were trousers, books, two hats and a carelessly flung fiddle. Below the two other windows was a plain kitchen table, unvarnished and bewilderingly strewn with hodge-podge of small things. Beside a pen was a tooth-brush. Mingled with clean sheets of paper were pipes, neckties and a pile of silver change. In one corner stood an antiquated typewriter. Garsted seemed splendidly at home and in a key with all this harmonious medley. He flung three paper volumes from a chair to the floor and offered the seat to Quincy. Quincy took it. Garsted rolled a cigarette, lighted it from the gas and suggested that they dine at the town’s most expensive restaurant. Then, he looked down at his shoes. “Damn it,” he said with a chuckle, “they’ll never do.” He excused himself and went out into the hall, leaving the door ajar behind him. “Oh, Bobby! Oh, Bobby!” he sang out. A door opened. “Going fussing to-night?” cried Garsted. “No,” came the distant voice. “Let me have your good shoes?”