"Here, Laddie, come here!" called the voice of a frail, little woman whose hair was white like wool, and like wool in texture. She sat crumpled up by an open gas fire of imitation logs. She Was wry-backed, her right shoulder thrust out into a discernible hunch. She flung her arm tenderly about the dog, when it came to her. She was, I figured, the professor's mother.... He held a hurried, whispered consultation with her--after I had told him that studying his German book at Mt. Hebron had impelled me to come to Laurel. Which story I could see pleased and flattered him. I was waiting in the storm porch. He returned. He thrust his hand into his pocket and fetched forth a two-dollar bill. "Go downtown to one of the restaurants you will find on the main street. You can get a square meal in one of them for a quarter or, at the most, fifty cents ... a bed for the same price ... climb the hill again in the morning, say about ten o'clock, and ask for me at the German Department ... I am sorry I can't invite you to stay here for the night ... but we have no room ..." and he glanced timidly at the woman whom I had taken to be his mother, but who, I afterward learned, was his wife. * * * * * I found a restaurant-hotel, as he had directed me, and procured my supper for a quarter ... fried potatoes and a cold slab of steak ... and a big Westerner who wore a sombrero and had a stupid, kindly, boyish face, showed me to a bed ... which also cost but a quarter for the night ... with a scattered ambuscade of bedbugs thrown in for good measure. In the morning, fried pork chops, pancakes and two cups of coffee--and I set out for the hill. The place buzzed with activity. The fall term was already in full swing, and students poured in lines up and down both sides of the steep street that led to the college ... girls and boys both, for it was co-educational. They were well dressed and jolly, as they moved in the keen windy sun of autumn. I was not a part of this. I felt like an outcast, but I bore myself with assumed independence and indifference. I thought everybody was looking at me. Most of them were. * * * * * Langworth enrolled me as a special student. He himself paid my tuition fee, which was a nominal one. I enrolled in Philosophy, Economics, German, Latin. My patron, furthermore, slipped a ten-dollar bill into my hand. "For the books you will need." He directed me to the Y.M.C.A. employment bureau. "They will see that you get work at something, so you can be sure of board and room ... in the early days we did not have things so well arranged. I worked my way through college, too. I nearly perished, my first year. After you settle somewhere, come and see me once in a while and let me hear how you're getting on." * * * * *